After reading “I died for Beauty-but was scarce,” “I Heard a Fly Buzz” and “A Rose for Emily”, one could not help but notice that each piece of literature all have a common theme of death. Death plays a major part of each of the literary works. Emily Dickinson’s poems were often written with the theme of death due to the many horrible life experiences she had encountered. She wrote of death often and was not afraid of it. In Faulkner’s story, “A Rose for Emily”, he writes about how death can make one do some very disturbing things with corpses. The main characters in these poems and this story all have approached the subject of death in their own unique ways yet have in common the different effects death can have on a person. Approaching one’s death can be a time to reflect upon our accomplishments and failures in life or a time to think of what lies ahead after death, meaning heaven and tranquility or maybe even hell. Then there are those of us who when we experience the death of a loved one go completely out of our minds.
Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts and died on May 15, 1886. During her lifetime, she faced many heartbreaking life incidents that influenced her poetry and caused her to frequently write upon the theme of death. She witnessed many deaths of people close to her. During the period of 1858 and 1866 Emily Dickinson wrote over 1000 poems. In 1864 and 1865 she went to stay with her relatives in Boston to see an eye doctor who said she was forbidden to read or write. She never left Amherst again. By the early 1870’s, Death in Emily’s life would start to begin. Her mother became very sick and was not able to leave her bed and Emily and her sister took care of her. Her father, Edward, died suddenly in 1874. After her father’s death, she stopped going out in public completely but did keep in touch with people through letters. She did most of her writing in her bedroom and became a loner. However, she...