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Dickenson, Hardy & Johnson

Emily Dickinson, Thomas Hardy and Ben Jonson often deal with universal themes in their poetry, even though the events they depict in their works are often personal and specific. This analysis will discuss the universal theme of death and the use of imagery as it appears in Dickinson’s “Death,” Hardy’s “The Man He Killed” and “The Walk,” and Ben Jonson’s “To The Reader.”

In Dickinson’s “Death” we see the use of imagery to make death, a feared concept, into something “gentlemanly.” Because of the speaker’s belief in the immortality of the soul and the keeping of the promise of Christ and Christianity, we see imagery where death becomes quite gentlemanly like because in reality death is only a harbinger of eternal afterlife to a good Christian. As the speaker says in the opening stanza she “can not stop for Death” so “He kindly stopped for me” (Dickinson 1). She could not stop for death because of fear of losing life as she knows it, so death kindly picks her up and treats her to an elegant carriage ride wherein she is dressed in the garb of an angel. It is only once she has died and is on her journey that she realizes there was nothing to fear because her destination is eternity and immortality of the soul, “Since then ‘tis centuries, and yet/Feels shorter than the day/I first surmised the horses’ heads/Were toward eternity” (Dickinson 1). Thus, death receives positive imagery from Dickinson because she believes it is not a painful ending but a joyous immortal beginning. It is also a use of irony that the poet makes death, typically a feared and frightening concept, gentlemanly through the use of imagery. This poem helps alleviate the fear and anxiety engendered by death to those who view as a finality.

In Hardy’s “The Man He Killed,” we also see the use of imagery to turn death during war into something ironic. The speaker is

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Dickenson, Hardy & Johnson. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 12:04, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1685310.html