Journal entry# 1 Emily Dickinson

Siu Faat Jimmy Wong
English 48b
January 11, 2008
Professor Lankford

Quote:

So huge, so hopeless to conceive…Parting is all we know of Heaven,/ And all we need of hell.

Summary:

They are found in the last two lines in one of her poems about death. I chose them because I think they are quite meaningful about life and death.

Response:

In this poem, “Parting” means a person die and leave the others. Therefore, parting must be sorrow. In order to decrease the sadness, people may think that the dead will go to the heaven where contains a lot of joy. However, the people who are still alive will be even sadder than the dead. They may feel like they are in “hell”. Dickinson truly tells the truth that the people who are alive suffer a lot about the deaths. I have read this quote for many times. Each time I feel very sad because it is so factual that it applies on me. My grandmother passed away six years ago. Hopefully, she is now having another kind of life in heaven with many friends. I can keep persuading myself that she is fine. However, I can't deny that I really feel like I am in hell in these years. Indeed, after I witnessed my grandmother’s death, I figure out that death is really like what Dickinson says. It is “so huge” and “so hopeless”. The reason for life to be so huge is because one person's death can really cause a lot of people sad like being in “hell”. Moreover, it is so hopeless because people cannot control themselves to live forever. No matter how modern the technology is, no one is able to change the rule of death. After reading this poem, Dickinson is really one of the best poets I have ever seen who can write so well about the death and the sorrow. She knows well that whenever somebody is in heaven, somebody will feel like living in “hell”.