An Interpretation And Analysis Of “I Ve Seen A Dying Eye” By Emily Dickinson Essay, Research Paper
An Interpretation and Analysis of “I ve seen a Dying Eye” by Emily Dickinson”I ve seen a Dying Eye,” by Emily Dickinson, is a poem about the nature of death. A sense of uncertainty and uncontrollability about death seems to exist. The observer s speech seems hesitant and unsure of what he or she is seeing, partly because of the dashes, but also because of the words used to describe the scene. More importantly, as the poem is from the point of view of the observer, whether the dying person saw anything or not, is not as significant as what the observer, and the reader, carry away from the poem. The suspicion of whether the dying person saw anything or had any control over his or her death is what is being expressed in the poem. If the dying person has no control, what kind of power does that give death? Did the eye find what it was looking for before the clouds billowed across their vision, and was it hopeful? These are questions brought about through the main theme the poem is trying to convey, which is that death forces itself upon the dying leaving them no control, and if something hopeful exists to be seen after death, it is a question left for the living to ponder.The idea that something exists after death is uncertain in this poem. Saying this, it is important that the point of view is that of the observer. The observer sees in the first few lines, “I ve seen a Dying Eye/Run round and round a Room–/In search of Something–as it seemed–.” The eye referred to is in fact a synecdoche that is representing a person, but with emphasis placed on the eyes of the person, and thus their point of view. From the start, we assume the eye is searching for evidence of an afterlife, but only the dying person knows for what the eye is searching. The reader gets a sense that the observer, who represents the living, knows what the dying eye is looking for, but because the observer is alive, the answer is hidden from his or her eyes. By using the word “seemed,” Dickinson, along with her ever-present dashes, injects an element of doubt in the speaker s voice as to whether something does exist. As in other Dickinson poems about death, there is a journey, however small, that the dying person embarks upon. The eye s journey through the clouds and the expanding obscurity represents the search for an existence after death. As the eye ran around the room the observer sees the eye s journey, “Then Cloudier become–/And then–obscure with Fog–.” The observer, through his or her hesitant speech, has already proved that there is an uncertainty or wariness about what he or she is observing. Once again, because the observer has the point of view, it is important that we realize it is his or her doubt and assumptions we are to be considering. As the clouds close in around the dying person s eyes, the observer sees that the dying person has no control over them. It seems that the eye is still searching, while the clouds, representing death, close in around them. The eye is not only looking, but it seems to be frantically looking around for something beyond death. With words like “run” used, a sense of urgency is added, and there seems to be a sense of panic in the dying person, which would indicate him or her having no control over the circumstances. If the clouds were to represent death, then the dying person having no control over the clouds, would, therefore, have no control over death. A kind of impression that maybe the dying person in this poem is not ready to die comes through in the lines “Run round and round a Room–/In search of Something–as it seemed–.” The eye s “running” seems to denote some hurriedness, as if he or she was not prepared. This uncontrollability, or panic, that the observer sees the dying person struggling with is disturbing. Even more important for the observer is the question of whether the eye saw something before death closed in around it. These lines are also emphasized through the subtle alliteration in each line, with Run round and round a Room, and In search of Something-as it seemed-. The most important part of the poem comes toward the end when the eye closes and ceases to search the room. “And then–[the eye] be soldered down/Without disclosing what it be/ Twere blessed to have seen–.” Also noted here is the only rhyme scheme in the poem that is made up of the words be and seen, which also suggests an emphasis of these two words. The eye, as discussed earlier, seems to be agitated and searching desperately for an afterlife existence. The dying person s eye is then “soldered down” and fails to let the observer know what it saw, or if it saw anything. The use of the word “solder” implies to the reader that whatever answer the eye found beyond the clouds is now permanently sealed away from the living world. Obviously, the paramount question in the observer s mind, is what the dying person saw or was “blessed to have seen.” As the dying person passes from the realm of the living, he or she carries the answer to the question asked by everyone left behind–what lies ahead after death?
The primary question, and cause of tensions between life and death, that the poem is posing for us concerns the doubts and questions that the observer is left to consider after he or she witnesses the death. In this poem, it seems that Dickinson is more interested in how the observer, whether in her poem or in real life, deals with the fact that what waits for us after death will always be unknown right until the final moment. The observer seems envious of the corpse, as implied in the lines, “And then–be soldered down/Without disclosing what it be/ Twere blessed to have seen.” It seems that the observer has seen all that has gone on while the person was dying. He or she watches the dying person progress through the dark clouds looking for something and a familiar interest is sparked. The observer wants to know the answer and feels cheated when the eyes “solder down,” the answer lost forever. It seems that we sometimes, as in the case of this particular observer, envy a dead person because they have discovered the answer to that haunting question. The reality of the situation is that because we, the observer and ourselves, choose to ponder that question, we give death a certain power over our lives. That we spend our whole life in uncertainty about death could constitute a kind of “journey” towards death. The realizations and guesses that we make pertaining to death make up the various stops along the way with the destination being that moment when the truth is revealed. The uncertainty about death and what remains after controls those who are still traveling in their journey.A glimmer of hope remains at the end of this journey, according to Dickinson. In the last line, ” Twere blessed to have seen–,” a hope hangs on the word “blessed,” and that word rings in our heads as a positive answer to the questions we ask. The other meaning that could be taken from that line is that what awaits us is not necessarily “blessed” or good, but that the observer thinks the dying person is now blessed because he or she finally knows the answer to the life-long question. It seems that Dickinson purposefully leaves the poem open-ended to keep that uncertainty alive in her poem. The only time the uncertainty of death is made certain is during that moment when our eyes begin their search through the engulfing clouds. Dickinson never gives an absolute definition of what she is addressing in this poem, as in many other poems she wrote. This poem reveals Dickinson s philosophy that we should be less interested in absolute answers to questions and more engaged in the importance of examining and exploring their significance.