ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -They then drive past the “Gazing Grain” allowing the author to think back upon the prime of her life. Then they pass the setting sun. This symbolizes the author’s death. The sunset is beautiful and gentle, and the passing from life to eternity is portrayed as such.

Detailed explanation-2: -The connotation of this poem is that the carriage is hearse, containing the author, death and immortality. Another connotation is the chill that the speaker feels, she is not really cold. It is just the thought of entering this different world, she is scared but does not question anything.

Detailed explanation-3: -Stanza 3 is a review of the writer’s journey in life starting from childhood, through maturity to death. Dickinson presents this symbolically from school (childhood), through the fields of gazing grain (maturity), to sunset (death).

Detailed explanation-4: -Emily Dickinson believes in the continuity of life. The poem’ I Heard a Fly buzz-when I died ‘shows the extension of life after death. Death marks an initiation into immortality. The dying person is no more bound by the social and religious obligations.

Detailed explanation-5: -Though the ride begins as a pleasant experience, as the speaker is taken through different stages of their life, in the fourth stanza the poem takes a discomforting turn as the speaker realizes that although Death is kind and patient, he is also unrelenting in his goal of taking her to her grave.