Emily Dickinson's Some Keep The Sabbath Going To Church

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Throughout her poems, Emily Dickinson uses a simple language to tell her audience complex messages about nature, God, the afterlife, and death. She is not hesitant to express her opinions on such topics, which is truly an admirable characteristic. Dickinson's statements give her audience ideas to ponder, sometimes making the reader uncomfortable, and making them want to understand more. Such as poems like “Hope is a Thing With Feathers” The poet writes about a bird, as a metaphor, juxtaposing it to hope. She carries the bird throughout the poem, explaining that the bird, “sings the tune without the words/ And never stops at all…” (Dickinson 3-4). Explaining that hope brings people positive feelings, and some people may never lose hope over …show more content…
One certain poem, “Some Keep the Sabbath Going to Church”, she tells the reader that the ritual of going to church in highly necessary for one to be religious. She tells the reader, religion can be found anywhere, especially in nature. In her effort to convince the reader that religious rituals are unnecessary to actually be religious, she persuades the reader that religion can be found by simply going outside, or looking out of a window. She provides support by saying “Some keep the Sabbath going to Church / I keep it, staying at Home/ With a Bobolink for a Chorister” (Dickinson 236). By implying that god can be found in nature through a bird as a choir, Emily conceives the reader that the outdoors are a better alternative to church for people that are searching for God. One critic agrees, saying “Emily Dickinson though that ‘nature is heaven’” (Keane 276). Through a simple and subtle language, Dickinson reminds us that god can be found anywhere beyond …show more content…
It is hard to imagine something other than what you have known all your life, being a place other than earth. Certainly, The poet has a hard time grasping the concept of an alternate universe, although she still believes in it.

Death and the afterlife come hand and hand, which is why Dickinson found a fascination for it in her poems. In one of her more popular poems “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”, she portrays death with a more peaceful approach. Unalike to another poem by her, “I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died” in which she portrays death as a terrifying fly. This clearly isn't the only time the poet showed both sides, which reveals how she never say things the same way. In “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”, she begins by writing:
“Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.

We slowly drove – He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure
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