American Literature

Emily Dickinsons My Life Closed Twice before its Close is a very brief lamentation that has to do with separation.  While one cannot normally equate the poet with the voice in the poem because the voice is an entirely different entity from the poet, it is easy to derive from this particular poem that the voice is experiencing some kind of emotional pain.

To note in the poem is how the voice uses the word close to represent death.  In the first line the voice states, My life closed twice before its close (1) suggesting that the voice had had two prior experiences before that are equal in impact as that of dying or the actual physical death.  Therefore, the two incidents the voice is referring to in the poem as the incidents where hisher life closes twice are events that carry the same amount of emotional strain as that associated with ones own physical death.  In effect, we have the voice in the poem saying that heshe had died two times already in the past and since these are not to be the real physical death because in reality nobody dies twice, then one can assume that these deaths are perhaps cessations of emotion or the death of a particular state of being such as joy.

In the next three lines, the voice writes, It yet remains to see  If Immortality unveil  A third event to me (2-4) suggesting that the speaker in the poem is anticipating a third similar event as implied earlier as the closing of life.  In effect, the voice is saying that even when heshe had already experienced two previous incidents that have had a great emotional impact heshe is expecting another such event to come about.  The question to these initial lines is aside from the implied assumptions that the closing of life in the poem is not actually physical death but grave emotional circumstances, where else in the poem does the voice give some clue as to the nature of these events

The implication of the nature of these events come in the last final stanzas of the poem where the voice writes, So huge, so hopeless to conceive  As these that twice befell. (5-6)  Here, we see that while the voice does not make a direct description of what the recent events actually were, the voice describes these events as huge and hopeless to conceive.  In other words, the voice suggests that it is useless for one to try and understand or know what these events are because all the voice knows is that they are huge.  However, the final beautiful lines of the poem state, Parting is all we know of heaven, And all we need of hell. (7-8) suggesting finally that in fact, the events mentioned by the voice to be the close of hisher life are events that have to do with physical separation, either by actual or physical death, or simply by distance.  Nevertheless, because the voice describes these events as all they know of heaven  the voice implies that the presence of whoever was lost in the poem is the only joy that heshe had ever known, and when the voice ends the poem with the final line, all we need of hell, the voice further fortifies the notion that in fact the events referred to are events that have great impact  separation in these final lines being equated with hell.  So, we see that in this very brief poem by Dickinson she packs in intense emotions that refer to the emotional death of a person because of separation that in fact, this emotional death can result to the sterility, hostility, and even the indifference of whosoevers life closes twice before its close. (1)