The beginning of our journey with Emily Dickinson’s poetry began with a sheet of paper describing how to tackle her intricate writing style. The first line started, “Reading Emily Dickinson well will change the way you see the world, if you let it”. Honestly, I believed that I would come out of this section the exact same person I walked in as, but this is not true. I have not lost my faith in God, the goodness of humanity, nor anything to an extreme, but I can say that Emily Dickinson has struck down certain Truths from her poems into my head that will change the way I look at my everyday life. Natural death and rebirth are a part of all life. Whether it involves pain or joy, it is a constant cycle that will only keep repeating …show more content…
Dickinson is dreading the coming of spring to her life, which is an oddity in comparison to most other people. Dickinson enjoys the darkness and peacefulness that the winter season brings, with nothing new occuring in nature, an almost completely stagnant season. She also dreads the daffodils and bees, and only wants grass to grow high in order to block her out from viewing these new signs of life. Dickinson knows that nature will always keep moving forward, and there is nothing she can do about it, so she has to either stay behind and try to ignore it, or begin to accept it. Dickinson does accept it in some ways as she says she has grown accustomed, but never fully does because she views herself as the, “Queen of Calvary”, or the queen of suffering. This poem pushes into my life a small beacon of regret in the way I handled the passing of my grandmother earlier this year. I, like Emily Dickinson, only enveloped myself in sadness and wishing for the past, but I never considered how death is a natural part of life, and acceptance of this leads to a fuller more exciting life. Looking at her death in this light would have slightly eased the pain, as I would have understood how this was a natural part of life, and nature will always move on taking with it the past. For me, it was my grandmother of 82 years, and for Dickinson, …show more content…
The first three lines read, “ Pain - has an element of blank, / It can not recollect / where it began,” (1-3). Pain has been a part of the lives of all humans on this planet since the beginning of mankind, and it will not be going anywhere soon. Pain is one of the Truths of the world, as it will be a part of our lives no matter where we turn. This may bring a pessimistic tone to the poem, yet there is some beauty in this Truth. Being able to deal with pain and suffering makes humans stronger as a whole, and reading this poem put this thought into mind as soon as I read it. Dickinson is talking about physical and emotional pain that everyone experiences in their life, whether it be the loss of a family member, to the failing of a math exam, the pain experienced will push you further than you thought you could ever go before to be sure you will never feel that pain again. For the first two quizzes in AP Literature, I got at the highest a 70 percent, and was almost failing the class. To avoid this pain of failing and me losing faith in my ability to do well in an advanced level course, the next reading we had I took detailed and thorough notes. There was no quiz on this reading, but I kept up this quality of work and eventually I was able to do better on the quizzes, and know I can handle the AP course load. The ending stanza of the poem describes that , “It has