Emily Dickinson's Diction

Emily Dickinson addresses death and how people cope with death through her use of varying tones in “The Last Night That She Lived”. Though the poem describes the moment at the end of the woman’s life, the different tones that Dickinson expresses throughout the piece reflect the emotions that arise at the beginning and years after the death. Ever stanza expresses a varying emotion that one feels when faced with death, demonstrating how Dickinson believes that life moves on after death. The tone of the poem is calm at first. The death of the woman has not been fully realized or absorbed by the speaker as Dickinson describes it to just be a “Common Night” (2). This calm is shattered by shock and sadness as Dickinson highlights that the night was ordinary “Except the Dying” in the following line (3). This portrays the suddenness of death and how life appears to suddenly change as “we noticed smallest things” and priorities change (5). Death becomes “this great light upon our Minds” that changes how people view life as its end stares back at them and they begin to mourn both for the person that is dying and the

The stanza begins with a tone of confusion or indecision as the speaker moves “Between Her final Room/ And Rooms where Those to be alive”, representing the struggle of coping with death as one is greatly impacted with the death but must try to move on and continue living (10-11). This confusion and indecision turns into accusation as “tomorrow were, a Blame” and the speaker searches for a reason for the death and the turmoil that they are faced with (12). This transforms into a jealousy for the dying woman as “Others could exist/ While She must finish quite” (13-14) The speaker believes that once the woman is dead, they will be unable to truly life and simply exist. This produces a sense of jealousy as the speaker feels that he/she is left to mourn forever while the dying woman finds