An Analysis Of Emily Dickinson's Poem Safe In Their Alabaster Chambers
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Precious Familusi 201525912
English 1080
Equality in Death
When someone dies, they are normally buried in a grave or cremated. In Emily Dickinson’s Poem, “Safe in Their Alabaster Chambers,” we will analyze the author’s focus on death, and the speaker’s description of the surroundings of the dead. The author uses several different ways to show that -- whether rich or poor, black or white -- there is no special treatment in death – every buried soul shares the same stagnant fate. Above the grave, however, dynamic life continues, contrasting the invariable nature of death. Throughout the poem, the speaker presents an idea of equality in death through literary elements such as diction, imagery, and characteristics.
In the First Stanza, the speaker…show more content… Lines two and three of the poem discuss how the dead are “untouched by Morning, and untouched by Noon” (2-3). The dead are untouched by morning and noon due to the fact they are buried six feet into the ground in a coffin, hence making it impossible to be impacted by either external dynamic force. The poem continues to support the thesis of equality in death, as the absence of influence from passing of time informs the reader that when one dies, they have no connection to the living world, regardless of who they were in life; therefore proving that there is no special treatment in death. Similarly, the speaker expands on death’s absence from time through the use of visual imagery, which is present in the textual evidence “Grand go the Years, In the Crescent above them” (6-7). Death’s exclusion from time is seen in “Grand go the Years,”(6) because the speaker evaluates on how the dead have been left out of time due to death not being impacted external time force while they lie peacefully in their coffin. Also “In the Crescent above them,” (7) the speaker uses visual imagery to describe the crescent referred in this line as the moons crescent which is above the grave but can’t be seen by the dead because death is not impacted by any external dynamic