Figurative Languages Reflected in My Life Closed Twice Before Its Close By Emily Dickinson

The poem titled My Life Closed Twice Before Its Close is a 2 quatrains frantic-themed poem by Emily Dickinson. This poem is very interesting to be analyzed because it tells about Dickinson’s personal life of being left dead by her loved ones. Emily geniusly used figurative languages to utter her utmost sorrow. This paper aiming to explore more about this poem’s meaning by analyzing the metaphor and personification uttered magnificently in this poem. The method used to analyze the poem is close-reading and formalistically identify figurative languages especially metaphor and personification found in this poem.

Dickinson used anaphora, a kind of figurative language which words repeat the first successive clauses, phrases, and sentences in the first line. She emphasized her sorrow by the phrase closed twice before its close. By this sentence, we can also find out that she had lose her partner(s) twice in her life. She used the phrase my life closed twice to illustrate how much she had feel sorrow after being left dead by her partners. This also implies that previously she had two partners and both of them were dead. We can conclude that her feelings when she was being left by her partners are equal with her death. She thought she had lose herself after being left dead. Therefore, sentence on the first line represents her feelings.

The second line, it yet remains to see, showed that her feelings of being left dead was such a mystery to her. The third line continues the previous line, if immortality unveil, shows her feelings will be uncertain forever. She personificates immortality as the time period of her grief after losing her partners. She also wanted it to end, unluckily, she had no willingness to do that. She would suffer until her death approaching. In the end, she did not know if she will ever fall in love again before her death because she was still in grief.

A third event to me, in the fourth line, signifies that deep inside, she wanted to be in a relationship for the third time. However, she felt afraid that her time will not be long anymore—she had no idea on how the future holds for her. So she was upset and confused but she did not know how to utter it when someone approached her.

Overall, the first stanza has a very dark meaning. The writer frankly uttered that she had already surrendered for her love-life after experiencing two heartbreaks consecutively. She might had a slight hope for a new relationship, however, she felt uncertain that her next partner would stay and never leave her for death. The word immortal also has a dark meaning for Dickinson’s life. In the end, the writer decided to stay all alone for keeping herself sane.

The next line is on the next stanza, so huge, so hopeless to conceive, which illustrates that in fact, she had a small hope of having a new life-partner, however, she doubted it. Therefore she wrote it so hopeless to conceive. She was frightened to start over a relationship all over again. The phrase so huge illustrates that these two heartbreaks were a huge accident for her life and these events affected her future life and damaged her feeling. These caused a trauma for her. This also showed in the next line, as these that twice befell, she felt uncertain and she thought she will experienced a failure when she fall in love for the third time. Dickinson thought that she would entirely lose herself if she let someone enters in her life. Twice befell is also a metaphor for describing her fears of falling in love again for the third time.

The last two lines in the second stanza are the most thoughtful metaphor from this poem. She described her partners’ situation after death in line 7, parting is all we know of heaven. The word parting, means that she and her partners had separated away because of death, so she chose the word parting. The word heaven means her partners’ had moved into a better place where they should not think about anything. The word heaven also illustrates the situation of Dickinson’s feeling. Dickinson felt glad knowing her partners were in a better place now, eventhough it might be painful for her. This also shows a paradox situation where she felt inevitable pain but she should be happy too knowing her partners were in a better place.

The last line which is and all we need of hell shows that she actually lived in earth that felt like hell because there were no presence of her partners beside her. The word hell is also a metaphor of the painful chastisement that she felt. This illustrates that she should fight alone for her life—without her partners’ presence. Deep inside, she needed them but she knew she could not reach them because now their world are separated. So, she should stay until death picks her up. Until that time, she would forever feel tortured until her time ends.

Dickinson picked some connotative words carefully. However, she successfully described her feeling by picking the right dictions. If we read it accurately, we will understand how it is like to be her. Especially the last two lines on the second stanza express the writer’s deepest misery of losing her partners. The word heaven and hell are two contradictive words which represented her and her partners’ situation in that time.

If we read the poem thoroughly, we can conclude that this poem has various figurative language such as metaphor, personification, symbols, and paradox. She might wanted to fall in love for the third time, however, she felt afraid of starting over again so she decided to live her life with grief, waiting death to come approaching her. Their deaths were a traumatic events for her, it damaged her lovely soul. Therefore, Dickinson wrote this poem to utters her deepest pain of losing her partners.