In many of Emily Dickinson’s poems the subject matter pertains to death and human mortality. However, one might accurately say that Dickinson’s particular worldview on mortality and immortality allows her to give the “dickens” to death. If we look at poem #193 we see Dickinson’s profound belief in Christianity. She begins the poem by explaining that until her life is over and she no longer has to wonder why, she will not know the answer of the afterlife and eternity. To her heaven will become a classroom in the sky wherein Christ will explain all pain away, “I SHALL know why, when time is over,/And I have ceased to wonder why;/Christ will explain each separate anguish/In the fair schoolroom of the sky”.
Death receives the dickens in a sense because the speaker in the poem knows that the promise of Peter will be kept and because she will look upon the woes of Christ with wonder. By accepting Christ and knowing he suffered to give her eternal life in the kingdom of heaven, the speaker can forget all her anguish which is like a drop in the bucket compared to the woes Christ endured for mankind, “He will tell me what Peter promised,/And I, for wonder at his woe,/I shall forget the drop of anguish/That scalds me now, that scalds me now.” In other words, the pain and anguish of life can be endured by the speaker of the poem because she understands that all the pain and suffering in this realm will be alleviated because of the pain and anguish Christ suffered for our sins.
Poem #754 begins with the line “My Life had stood – a loaded Gun -.” In this poem the speaker personifies a gun as the companion to its human owner. The owner passes the gun and identifies it and carries it off on a romp in the woods, hunting doe and echoing its blasts to the mountains. The gun smiles a light upon the valley that is like a volcanic explosion. At night the gun and its ow
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