Because I could not stop for Death, by Emily Dickinson :: Emily Dickinson Essays

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born on December 10,1830 in the quiet community of Amherst, Massachusetts (Davidson 247). She was the second born to Edward and Emily Norcross Dickinson (Davidson 247). Her older brother Austin and her younger sister Lavina lived in a reserved family headed by their authoritative father (Davidson 247). Emily’s mother was not “emotionally accessible,'; thought out there lives (Davidson 247). Their parents weren’t involved in their children’s lives. One thing that their parents did do was raise there children with the Chistian tradition (Chase 28). They were expected to take up their father’s religious beliefs and values without any argument. Emily though did not fit in with her father’s religion and as she got older challenged these conventional religious viewpoints of her father and his church (Chase 28). Here put more stuff about why she did not except the Puritan God and why because of this you saw it in her writing (on page 12-? In Aiken). Her father was also an influential politician in Massachusetts holding powerful positions (Johnson 26). Due to this her family was very prominent in Amherst. Emily did not enjoy the popularity and excitement of her public life in Amherst. So she began to withdraw from the town, her family and friends (Johnson 29). This private life that she lived gave her, her own private society. She refused to see almost everyone that came to visit and rarely left her father’s house (Johnson 31).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In Emily’s writing changed over the years due to events in her life. Most of her writing was about nature, friends, love and almost a third of her poems dealt with the subject of death (Ferlazzo 22). I’m going to focus my paper on the topic of death. A lot of Dickinson’s life was in morning the deaths of her close friends and family. Her father died in 1974, Samuel Bowles died in 1878, J.G. Holland died in 1881, her nephew Gilbert died in 1883, and both Charles Wadsworth, Emily’s mother died in 1882 (mapes) and Helen Hunt Jackson in 1885 (Chase 305). Over those seven years, many of the most influential and precious friendships of Emily’s passed away. On June 14, 1884 Emily suffered her first attack of her terminal illness, which put her to bed in her family’s house. Then less than two years latter she died at the age of 56 (Chase 310).