Analysis Of Emily Dickinson's Death Complex

Emily Dickinson is one of the well-known women poets that this world has ever had. She and her works are intensively studied by overseas and domestic scholars. Her life experience remains mysterious and her works are unconventional and irregular. Compared with western research, domestic research is rather backward and simple with few monograph and biography. Moreover, quite a few poems still remain strange to Chinese audience. Based on previous achievements, this paper attempts to offer some comparatively original study of Dickinson—systematic study of her death complex.With this aim, the main body of this paper is divided into two parts. The first part deals with her death complex, and the second reasons for her death complex. The same method is applied in the three sections of the first part—interpreting her death complex by analyzing poems on death. When it comes to death poetry, two themes are of great importance with certainty. One is immortality and the other suffering. As for immortality she wanted to believe in it, but facts she observed made her doubt about it. Therefore, she moved between these two poles but never came to a definite idea. She held similar attitude towards suffering: on one hand, she thought anguish brought by death can lead to one's disintegration;on the other hand, she explained that if one could overcome the suffering, one could be spiritually stronger to face death. In addition, the trace of her death complex can not only be found in death poetry, but in other categories of poems, such as nature poetry or love poetry. This is because that she was so fascinated with death that she often mentioned it unintentionally.After thorough analyses of her death complex, the paper continues to explain reasons for her complex. First the cultural background of her time is discussed as external impact. However, death of her relatives and friends made her question that what indeed death could bring to human. As a result she tended to doubt the ideas which she wanted to believe in. In spite of the above impacts, not everyone would be so preoccupied with death like her. Thus the unique emotional disposition developedduring her growth is the greatest influence. With some examples and psychoanalysis, this part explores the reasons from the above aspects.The efforts made for this paper are meaningful with the construction of a systematic study of Dickinson's death complex. Previous research features some essays in which only those household poems are discussed. Hopefully this paper can provide some useful information for further study though the paper itself seems not to be perfect in some points.