It Was Not Death For I Stood Up - Notes

It was not death, for I stood up,
And all the dead lie down.
It was not night, for all the bells
Put out their tongues for noon.


It was not frost, for on my flesh
I felt siroccos crawl,
Nor fire, for just my marble feet
Could keep a chancel cool.

And yet it tasted like them all,
The figures I have seen
Set orderly for burial
Reminded me of mine,

As if my life were shaven
And fitted to a frame
And could not breathe without a key,
And ’twas like midnight, some,

When everything that ticked has stopped
And space stares all around,
Or grisly frosts, first autumn morns,
Repeal the beating ground;

But most like chaos, stopless, cool,
Without a chance, or spar,
Or even a report of land
To justify despair.

Useful link: http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/notdeath.html

Theme:

Physical entrapment, sensory details, pain, anguish, overwhelming despair, death

Symbol:

Idea of abstraction , paradoxical state of mind and body
Having difficulty in identifying her own situation, and the source of her torment ® use pronoun “it”

-        Death of inner life – “lying down” while in reality, she is “standing up
 l    Living dead, soul being entrapped within the “frame”, contradiction between volition and the brutal reality

-        When the “grisly frosts” “repeal the ground” ‘s vitality® constitutes an oxymoron, implying an underlying relief in the abandonment of life ; feeling of suspension in life in earth mirrors the speaker’s emotional experience  ® the pulsation of life is obliterated by frosts.

-         One technique that gives order to her description is the parallelism or repetition of "it was not" followed by the reason for her eliminating a possibility; the speaker knows she can't be dead, because she is standing up; the blackness engulfing her isn't night, because the noon-time bells are ringing; nor is the chill she feels physical cold, because she feels hot as well as cold

-         The series of antithesis in the first two verses which coalesce in the third, where the dead remind the persona of herself.  These opposites are thereby resolved in the mind of the Dickinson’s persona, who then proceeds to state what her state of mind is most like.  

-          “fitted to a frame”® claustrophobic, fear of being confined in a particular place ® yet this contradicts with “space stares”® “space” connotations of freedom, liberty® uncomfortable in both of these places ®there’s no ending for her, no matter she is free or trapped

Structure: 

Iambic tetrameter and trimeter: follow the familiar hymn structure when most Dickinson’s poems strive  ® articulate sensations and emotional experiences, which are beyond the reach of words

o   The diminished trimetre emobodies the unspeakable pain, torment that could not be depicted.

o   Regular iambic tetrameter and trimetre epitomises the “frame”® she is destined to be entrapped within this world® even upon her speech

-          Opening  with logical structure that begun with negative definition, then refined and developed in the imagery of stanzas 3-5, with the purposive syntax “but most”, writer is creating a semblance of climax that the deliverance/ending could be found ® yet vanquished by the inability to even “justify despair”

-          Punctuation, usually so helpful in making the meaning clear, isn't here. Instead, the silence that takes its place is meant to warn and make us wary, to pause and parry, so that we lurch and linger—and turn back to the emphatic import of every capitalized noun.

-          Rhyming pattern exemplifies her fluctuation of emotion® solid rhyme, pararhyme

o   pararhyme: “down” , “noon”: disharmony from world has invaded into the rhymes ® she is unsettled

o   solid rhyme:  “seen”, “mine” : presence of these suggesting her calmness in mind could only be attained when the idea of death aroused in her mind

Key Features:

-          “chaos”, “stopless”, “cool” ® separated by hyphens to give them equal prominence

o   coined word “stopless” creates sense of momentum and shipwreck metaphor which follows reflects the emphasis on desolation

o   contrast between “chaos” and “cool” which give a sense of calmness, everything in the world is antithetical ® world is the cyclone whereas the poet herself is in the eye of the storm ® the co-existence of destruction and calmness give prominence to the idea that the trap/ despair is “stopless” ® there is no power to control it ® wait to be brought to trialled in serenity

-          “to justify despair”

o   undermines the attempt made to define by logic the irrationality of extreme emotion

o   despair could only exist providing that there is a presence of hope

o   ironically, if her condition were any of the possibilities she rejected at the beginning of the poem, there might be hope or possibility of change. If asleep, she might awaken; if in a stupor, she might be roused; if dead, she might be resurrected. Thus, her condition is worse than despair, causes more anguish than despair, and allows for no possibility of cure.

-          “without a chance or spar”, “or even a report of land”

o   psychological shipwreck imagery of her drifting further and further, sense of powerlessness, fear for the unknown while being already entrapped within the obscurity

-          “it tasted like all of them."

o   using a synesthetic image (tasting death, darkness, and cold) to show that her state affects every aspect of her life and that different states have become merged and indistinguishable

-          “everything ticked has stopped”

o   time has stopped® her depression is ceaseless that even time beomes “stopless” to her

-          “felt sicroccos crawl”

o   state of passiveness® could only feel with the possibility of vision being blocked ® crawling flesh is physically most unsettling.

o   Use of enjambement here ® the poem crawls over itself over to stand out® the inability to control her source of suffering

-          “not fire, for just my marble feet”

o    Just her feet could cool a chancel; she is presented synecdochally to be a marble statue but her feet alone could cool the chancel.

-          “and..and..and”

o   anaphora® shows blind panic, originates due to her life being “shaven”® repetition also suggest the cyclical entrapment in her life

CONCLUSION

Since the moment of “her life being fitted to a frame”, the attempt to “justify despair” even becomes futile and ludicrous.

MAIN QUOTATIONS:

-          “my life were shaven and fitted to a frame”,

-           “cannot breather without a key” .

-          “space stares”

-          “justify despair”

-          “figures set orderly, for burial”

RHYMES:

-          “down, noon”

“seen, mine”