Poetry is an outlet for both the reader as well as the poet. Poetry becomes an escape in which a person can become lost in words and explore the possibilities of their imagination. The poem “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” by: Emily Dickinson, displays different emotions that are associated with the aftermath of death. In the short story “Used to Live Here Once” by: Jean Rhys the author uses literacy elements such as symbols in order to help the reader to recognize the theme of the story. Both of these literature pieces share a similar theme about the journey of life as well as the afterlife. Although these two pieces are different they share the same message of death being unexpected and taking advantage of the present. Recognizing the symbols in each of these literature pieces pulls these two similar themes together bringing an overall better understanding of each of piece, as well as their true meanings.
Knowing the background of an author or a poet allows the reader to understand their writing and where their emotion comes from, which can make reading the poets work more enjoyable. The author that wrote “Used to Live Here Once” is Jean Rhys. “She was born August 24th in 1890 in Dominica.” (The Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English, 1999) Rhys was married twice. With her second marriage it became an abusive marriage. “He mistreated her, but also recognized and encouraged her talent, writing an introduction to her first collection of sketches and stories”. (The Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English, 1999) Even though Jean Rhys personal life was not perfect she was able to take those emotions and put them into her writing creating touching novels, short stories, and poems that will be left with the world for many generations to come. Knowing a writers personal story allows their reader to understand the writers emotional state and where their emotion comes from, which can make their work more relatable.
“Because I Could Not Stop for Death” was written by the famous poet Emily Dickinson. “Emily Dickinson was born December, 10, 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her lyrics, chiefly concerned with immortality, love, nature, and death are notable for their simple, precise language, fresh imagery, variety of meter, and occasional whimsical humor.”(The Great American History Fact-Finder, 2004) When reading the poem “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” she hit most of these marks throughout the poem. This poem welcomes death in a new light that most people don’t view death in. Even reading the poem generations later it still has a fresh new feeling that looks at death more on an understanding level. People even generations later don’t write about death with such relaxed tones that Emily Dickinson choose for “Because I could not stop for Death”, Emily Dickinson wrote over 1000 poems. Most of these poems came to surface after her death. “Used to Live Here Once” is a short story that starts off with a woman close by a river. As the story begins the woman begins to re call certain objects that she remembers from her past. As you begin to read this story the tone of the poem is calm, relaxed, and serine. The woman does not appear to be in any stress and appears just to be taking a walk next to a river, which is a sign of how things are not always what they appear to be, especially in literature. When the story begins the reader is not aware that the woman is her afterlife. The poem goes on with the woman coming across a home in which she used to live in. She then tries to gain the attention of two children who were playing, they continued to play and eventually run inside from the cold. At the end of the poem the woman states “That’s when she knew”. This story is mapped out to perfection, because the first time the reader reads this story they start to pick up on small clues that hints that something is not quite right, and at the end of the story the reader finds out at the same time as