The Last Night She Lived, By Emily Dickinson

Death is a very subjective topic and in the poem “The Last Night She Lived”, by Emily Dickinson the speaker reveals attitudes of realization and melancholy towards the woman’s death. These attitudes are revealed through the author’s use of figurative language, tone and diction.
Throughout the woman’s death process the speaker comes to a great realization, becoming more aware of herself and her surroundings. According to the speaker the night was a “common night,” but the woman’s death “Made Nature different” and that "smallest things", once overlooked, were now very apparent. The speaker uses words like realized, overlooked, minds, and italicized to emphasize the great realization of life she is experiencing through the woman’s death. The
death of the woman sparks a change in the minds and perceptions of “Those to be alive”. The speaker also seemed to be slightly envious of the woman’s death. In line 15, the speaker called it a “Jealousy” and following it up with words like “Those to be Alive”, “others”, and “blame”.
The reader comes to the understanding that the speaker feels a sense of melancholy regarding the woman’s death, as it appears she cares deeply for the woman.
Numerous times throughout the poem, the speaker notes how this woman’s death has changed the night. The description of the scene shows “Those to be alive Tomorrow” sitting in a room opposite of “Her final Room”, and waiting in disbelief, too “jostled” to “speak at length”. Obviously the woman’s death has had a profound effect on the speaker and the others so far they feel it in their “Souls”. In addition to the speaker’s disbelief, the speaker goes on to personify the dying woman, liking her death to a reed slowly bending towards the water. By choosing to describe the death in such a way, the speaker reveals affection towards the woman. Throughout the poem there is no use of punctuation, until a lone period appears to represent the finality of the woman’s life. Most importantly, the scene after the death, described as an “awful leisure,” implies the guilt, or “Blame” the others, namely the speaker feels about living on after the woman has died. The speaker’s pain at the woman’s death is heightened by words such as “dying”, “final”, “struggled”, “dead”, and “awful”, and especially showcased by a stutter “We-We” during the description of the handling of the woman’s soulless body, now simply a
shell.
In this Emily Dickinson poem, the speaker feels a myriad of emotions regarding the death of a woman well regarded by the speaker, including melancholy and a growing sense of awareness. The speaker’s attitude is then revealed through figurative language, tone, and diction, yet the poem finishes with no concrete meaning or ending.