O'Donnell Dickinson Whitman

The work of  Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman are similar in their views on death. Both authors believe that many do not live their lives to the fullest, and perhaps, meet their dying day wishing they had done more. One example of  this is Dickinson's poem "Because I could not stop for Death." In this poem, the narrator is meets death on her way down the road, and she realizes that her time is up and she has not given herself much time to really appreciate her life leading up to this moment. Dickinson writes, "We slowly drove, he knew no haste/ And I had put away/ My labor and my leisure too,/ For his civility." Whitman also discusses this subject in his poem, "Song of Myself." He writes, "Perhaps you have been on it since you were born and did not know,/ Perhaps it is everywhere on water and on land./ Shoulder you duds dear son, and I will mine, and let us hasten/ forth." Here, he discusses his road to death, suggesting that he, like Dickinson, was also too busy for death. 

It is clear that both authors believe that death is, obviously, inevitable, but also not something to be feared. Walt Whitman in "Song of Myself" alludes to the fact that death is a beautiful, spiritual journey. He writes, "And mark the outlet, and mark the relief and escape./ And as to you Corpse I think you are good manure, but that does not / offend me,/ I smell the white roses sweet-scented and growing,/ I reach to the leafy lips,/ I reach to the polish'd breasts of/ melons." Here he mentions his physical body becomeing manure and his spiritual body ascending into a better place. Then he says, "Do you see O my brothers and sisters?/ It is not chaos or death - it is form, union, plan - it is eternal/ life - it is Happiness." Emily Dickinson too clearly believes that her spirit will live on in the next life. She writes in "Because I could not stop for Death," "We paused before a house that seemed/ A swelling of the GROUND/ The roof was scarcely visible/The cornice in the ground." This line lets the reader know that this character only pauses by her final resting place, because the real her will live on somewhere else.

One last thing that both authors do is compare misery with death. It is clear that both authors believe that death is not the only "death," but that many terrible things in one's life could be compared to one's end. Dickinson writes in "My life closed twice before its close," " My life closed twice before its close--/ It yet remains to see/ If immortality unveil/ A third event to me." Here, it could be that this author is speaking of a death of a person close to her, an emotional death. Whitman also touches on that by writing, "(No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before)." Here, the author compares misery to death. Because he has experienced misery in his life, death is not as frightening.