The last night that she lived

Coping with death can be one of the hardest and most emotional tests of character one can be faced with. When you’re forced to deal with the passing of a loved one, your left with your grief, sorrow and the loneliness left behind. Yet in Emily Dickinson’s poem “ The last Night that She lived” it is almost devoid of emotion entirely. The opening stanza gives a preview of the poem, its devoid of emotion, we have no relation to who has died, and no name given to make a connection or sympathize. The line “ It was a Common Night/ Except the Dying” shows that the world or time does not stop when one person has died, and they have no significant importance to the speaker. But with the death comes an enlightenment where “ we noticed smallest things/ things overlooked before. ” Yet this is only a mental realization no emotion is displayed no grief, or sorrow, no anger towards the death. Only cold calculation. “ As We went out and in/between Her final Room” it is as if they are moving between two contrasting worlds. Although “ She” is not yet dead, there is already a sense of distinct separation. The speaker is talking about “ Her” death but not in time but space, “ She” has her room, a room that’s meant for her death and still there is area for the living to converge. A room in which “ A jealousy for Her arose, ” because with most deaths people try and rationalize where “ She” may go. Envious of her everlasting peace and her going to a “ better place” while their forced to stay here on Earth living. The last stanza it reveals that the ordeal is finished for the dying woman, she has passed on. But it is not finished for the living that is at a loss of how to respond to something so final. They do what is customary by placing the hair and the head. After that, however, they are left alone with their thoughts. In the last lines “ And then an awful leisure was/ Belief to regulate” Dickinson uses an oxymoron to describe the adjustment people have to face after the death of “ Her. ” Death is the end, its unavoidable at some point everybody will meet their end, and return to which they came. They will “ Then Lightly as a Reed/Bent to Water, struggle scarce/ Consented, and die. ” Although it lacks the deep emotion that’s offset by death, Dickinson’s poem shows the true nature of death.