Emily Dickinson’s Poem “After a Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes”: A Dark Look at Death and Suffering

1. Introduction

“After a great pain, a formal feeling comes” is one of the most famous poems by Emily Dickinson. It was first published in 1866 in the collection called “Death and Dying”. The poem is about suffering, death, and how a person copes with these concepts.

Dickinson was born in 1830 in Massachusetts. She was a very religious person and attended a local church. However, she later became an agnostic. Her father was a strict man who didn’t allow her to socialize much. This might be one of the reasons why she became so isolated later in her life.

Dickinson lived a very secluded life. She rarely left her house and when she did, she was always accompanied by her family or friends. She wore white clothes all the time, which might be another reason why she’s often associated with death.

Dickinson was a very talented poet. However, only seven of her poems were published during her lifetime. Most of her poetry was found after her death in 1886.

2. Emily Dickinson’s Life and Isolation

Emily Dickinson was born on December 10th, 1830, in Amherst, Massachusetts. She came from a wealthy family and had a comfortable childhood. Her father was Edward Dickinson, who was a lawyer, and her mother was Emily Norcross Dickinson.

Dickinson’s parents were very different people. Her father was a very strict man who didn’t allow his daughter to socialize much. On the other hand, her mother was a kind and gentle woman who loved spending time with her children.

Dickinson had two brothers: Austin and Gilbert. Austin was born in 1829 and Gilbert in 1836. Both boys were sent away to boarding school when they were young. As a result, Dickinson didn’t have anyone to play with at home and spent most of her time alone.

In 1847, Dickinson began attending Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (now Mount Holyoke College). She only stayed there for one year before returning home because she felt homesick.

Later, in 1856, Dickinson started exchanging letters with Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who was a well-known writer and abolitionist. Higginson served as a mentor for Dickinson and provided her with feedback on her poetry.

In 1858, Dickinson’s father died suddenly of a stroke. This event had a profound effect on the poet and many of her later poems are about death and loss.

In 1862, Dickinson’s mother also died suddenly of pneumonia. This left the poet feeling even more isolated than before because she now had no close family members left alive.

Throughout her life, Dickinson rarely left her home in Amherst. When she did venture out, she was always accompanied by family or friends so that she wouldn’t have to be alone.

Dickinson began wearing white clothes around this time as well. Some people believe that she did this because she wanted to be closer to death or because she wanted to symbolically represent purity and innocence.

In 1865, Dickinson suffered from Bright’s disease, which is now known as kidney failure. This made her even more reclusive than before because she didn’t want people to see her in a sick state.

Dickinson died on May 15th, 1886, at the age of 55. The cause of her death is unknown but it is believed that she may have suffered from a brain hemorrhage.

3. “After a Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes” as a Pessimistic and Feministic Poem

“After a great pain, a formal feeling comes” is one of Dickinson’s most famous poems. It was first published in 1866 in the collection called “Death and Dying”. The poem is about suffering, death, and how a person copes with these concepts.

The poem is written in iambic tetrameter, which means that each line has four beats and the stresses fall on the odd-numbered syllables. This gives the poem a very musical quality.

The poem is also interestingly structured. The first three stanzas all end with the word “comes”. This creates a sense of anticipation and makes the reader want to know what will happen next.

The final stanza ends with the word “we”, which changes the tone of the poem from individual to collective. This could be interpreted as Dickinson saying that we all suffer and deal with death in our own way.

The title of the poem, “After a great pain, a formal feeling comes”, is very interesting because it doesn’t seem to make sense at first glance. However, upon further analysis, it can be interpreted in several ways.

One interpretation is that the formal feeling Dickinson is referring to is relief. This makes sense because after we experience great pain, we are often happy to simply feel nothing at all.

Another interpretation is that the formal feeling Dickinson is referring to is actually numbness. This makes sense because when we experience great pain, we often go into shock and become detached from our emotions.

The final interpretation is that the formal feeling Dickinson is referring to is death itself. This makes sense because after we experience great pain, we often wish for death as a way to escape our suffering.

4. Death as the Main Theme of the Poem Emily Dickinson’s poetry often deals with dark topics such as death and suffering. This is likely due to the fact that she experienced many deaths in her life, including the sudden deaths of her father and mother.
“After a great pain, a formal feeling comes” is no exception. The entire poem is about how Dickinson copes with the death of her loved ones.
In the first stanza, Dickinson describes how she feels after her loved ones have died. She says that she feels like she’s been “stopped” and that everything around her has become “bleak”.
This could be interpreted as Dickinson being in shock after experiencing such sudden deaths. She can’t believe that her loved ones are gone and everything around her seems blurry and unreal.
In the second stanza, Dickinson compares herself to a machine that has been “wound up” and is now “running down”. This could be interpreted as Dickinson saying that she feels like she’s on autopilot after her loved ones have died.
She goes through the motions of everyday life but she doesn’t really feel alive anymore. It’s as if she’s just going through the motions and waiting for her own death.
In the third stanza, Dickinson says that she feels like she’s been “put away” after her loved ones have died. This could be interpreted as Dickinson saying that she feels like she’s been put in a box and forgotten about.
She feels like she’s not really living anymore, she’s just existing. This is likely how Dickinson felt after she lost her father and mother.
In the final stanza, Dickinson compares herself to a bird that has been shot and is now “lying still”. This could be interpreted as Dickinson saying that she feels like she’s been killed by the deaths of her loved ones.
She can’t imagine living without them and she feels like she’s already dead inside. This is likely how Dickinson felt in the months and years after her parents died.
5. Conclusion Emily Dickinson was a very talented poet who wrote about dark topics such as death and suffering. “After a great pain, a formal feeling comes” is one of her most famous poems and it vividly highlights the topic of death and suffering.

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