Poem Analysis "The Last Night that She Lives..."

Week 1: “The Last Night that She Lived…” (Emily Dickinson) Emily Dickinson was a phenomenal writer in her time, with an array of different literature pieces. In “The Last Night that She lived” Dickinson writes about the death of a girl, we are unknown of who this girl is to her. The girl dying may be perceived as Emily Dickinson herself, looking into the future of what her death may be like. The theme of this poem is clearly death. Dickinson handles the situation much better than most. Dickinson uses Stanza one as an introduction to the rest of her poem. Stating “it was a Common Night” Dickinson tries to make this death as normal as possible, realizing everyone is bound to die. The tone of this starts out as cheerful and hopeful. Dickinson reminisces about the girl who is dying, “We noticed smallest things-- Things overlooked before” The attitude she portrays is casual and almost overlooked, as if this isn’t something so significant. As the poem goes on Dickinson’s attitude changes. She begins to realize what is happening to this girl and that there is no hope anymore, in stanza three. This stanza states “As we went out and in between her final room”. Her anticipation of this girl’s death makes Dickinson seem more anxious. She continues with stanza four making it seem like life shouldn’t be taken for granted, “That Others could exist While She must finish quite.” Dickinson makes me feel as though we are lucky to have what we have and it does not seem fair that others get to live while this girl is dying. Towards the end of the poem Dickinson uses metaphors to explain the last few moments this girl had in the word. Her attitude is now upset realization. Everything is now a reality and she uses the lines “Too jostled were Our Souls to speak At length the notice came.” to show it is real life and her life is slowly ending. Disappointed in this sad event the final lines in the poem that Dickinson used to portray the girl’s death were “Then lightly as a Reed Bent to the Water, struggled scarce-- Consented, and was dead--” The girl’s death progressively took a toll on Dickinson. At the beginning of the poem she was eager to express the little things that were normally unnoticed in the girl’s life, and the death appeared almost nonchalant. As the poem went on Dickinson began to get more and more upset with the situation and was almost in denial.