Every Rose

Paper of Many Parts

Analysis of: There’s been a Death in the Opposite House

A poem by: Emily Dickinson

There's been a death in the opposite house
As lately as to-day.
I know it by the numb look
Such houses have alway.

The neighbors rustle in and out,
The doctor drives away.
A window opens like a pod,
Abrupt, mechanically;

Somebody flings a mattress out,–
The children hurry by;
They wonder if It died on that,–
I used to when a boy.

The minister goes stiffly in
As if the house were his,
And he owned all the mourners now,
And little boys besides;

And then the milliner, and the man
Of the appalling trade,
To take the measure of the house.

There'll be that dark parade

Of tassels and of coaches soon;
It's easy as a sign,–
The intuition of the news
In just a country town.

Initial Response

When first glancing through the packet full of poetry by Emily Dickinson, I honestly had no idea what kind of poem I was looking for.  To me they all seemed to be groups of gibberish words thrown onto a paper.  When I was asked to choose one to explain to the class, I flipped through and stopped wherever my finger decided to land.  As it came to rest on “There’s been a death in the opposite house”, my enthusiasm towards the writing assignment was not boosted.  I found the poem to be dark and depressing.  The lines seemed to be cut off at strange intervals causing it to have a choppy feel as apposed to the rhythmic flow of a poem.      

I thought that the language she used was clear and easy to understand, but after my first reading it was clear that I hadn’t found the deeper meanings in some of the ideas. As I attempted my second reading, I found that the poem could be read with very different ideas in mind.  I found that almost every word could be interpreted as something other than itself; that all the stanza’s had different implications.  It was at this point I knew that I was going to have to put a lot of work into cracking this poem.       After my third reading I finally began to form my theory of what this poem was about.  In this reading I took each stanza and picked it apart word by word.  When I came to a conclusion about each stanza I put the poem back together, and found my story.   

Paraphrase     

The poem begins with a death in a home across the street from the narrator.  The narrator then continues to describe the situation of the house that is “numb” after the death.  He tells us of the neighbors visiting the mourning family, about the doctor buzzing in and out, and of the children playing in the streets frightened after a mattress is discarded out a window.  Then the minister comes in to console the mourners and the rest of the little boys who are too young to understand the immensity of the situation.  Later, after the minister leaves the milliner (hat maker) comes to take the “measure of the house”.  The narrator then closes by saying that there will soon be a funeral procession to explain the news to surrounding citizens that there was another death in their “country town”. 

Report    

I decided to analyze this poem by Emily Dickinson because for some reason I was drawn to her dreary language and depressing tone.  I myself have never been a person for sad poetry, or sad anything for that matter, but there was something that spoke to me in this poem.    

The first sentence in particular caught my attention and kept it until the end.  The narrator states; “There’s been a death in the opposite house.”  These simple words forced you to read more into what the narrator is observing.  Where is the narrator?  What do they mean by “the opposite house?” Who died?  The questions entice the reader to read more so that they can answer their burning questions.  It is not until the very last stanza when their questions can be answered.      

Look to the first stanza where the narrator tells the reader; “There’s been a death in the opposite house / As lately as to-day.” As I read this I was lured to the word “opposite.”  It was hard for me to decide how opposite was supposed to be interpreted.  I’ve come across three definitions of opposite in my life time, and I think the one that makes the most sense in this situation is contrary or radically different in some respect common to both.  With this definition I reread the stanza and formulated my idea that the opposition between the two parties was the amount of money or social standing.  

I then decided that the “numb look” implies that the death was caused by something that is uncommon in the homes of wealthier families, and more common among the poor.  This immediately brought me to the idea of disease.  With research I found out that that during Emily’s lifetime, there were outbreaks of diseases like Typhoid, Typhus, Smallpox, Cholera, Scarlet Fever, and Yellow Fever.  In that time it was often more common for people living in the streets to be infected because they were around the germs more frequently than the wealthier that lived locked up in their homes.  The narrator expresses this idea of being locked in when he talks about the window opening “abrupt, mechanically.” This shows that it opens only now, quickly as if to keep the air inside from staying and infecting the others.  As I read about the mattress being expelled out the window and about the people scattering outside, realized that “It” wasn’t a person.  “It” was the disease.  The scattering people outside were hoping that the disease had died along with its victim so that they would not be infected.      

At first I was stumped by the fourth and fifth stanza as I read them.  Stanza four begins with the minister going “stiffly” in.  I understand that his job must be difficult; grieving with a mourning family, but “stiffly” doesn’t seem to express that feeling to me.  The Webster’s definition of the word is: rigid or firm; difficult or impossible to bend or flex; not moving or working easily; not supple; moving with difficulty, as from cold, age, exhaustion, or injury.  I suppose the best explanation for Emily’s usage of the word would be exhaustion. This implies that the minister is exhausted by death; implying that this happens a lot.  Emily then proceeds to explain to the reader that there are others involved in the proper addressing of the matter.  The milliner comes along with “the man of the appalling trade” to measure the house as well as the family for the funeral. 

As I read commentary from various other writers and editors, I found that there is an ongoing argument about the stanzas of this particular Dickinson poem.  The discrepancy is whether Thomas H. Johnson had the right to edit this poem in his publishing of Poems of Emily Dickinson.  He omitted a separation between stanzas that, in my opinion, takes away from the poem.  In the original poem by Dickinson she separated stanza 5 and 6 with a single lined stanza; “There'll be that dark parade”.  To me this one line carries very important meaning.  This line carries the casket away from the home and into “That dark parade”; the funeral.  Thomas H. Johnson simply edited the spacing because he wanted the poem to appear more conventional.  I don’t think he actually realized he would be changing the meaning of the entire last stanza.       

Though it is a shame for Emily, because it appears Thomas’s version is the most commonly used. 

Parody

There was a baby born at the hospital

Just the other day

I can tell by the colorful balloons

thatAnnounce it’s a boy, hurray!

The relatives travel in from out of state,

the UPS man arrives with deliveries made next day.

He throws up the hatch,

Quick, automatically;

From inside the truck a brown box is thrown out,–

The children hurry by;

They wonder what’s inside of that,–

I used to when a boy.

The grandparents go gleefully in

As if the house were theirs,

And they owned all the family now,

And tiny babies besides;

And then the blankets arrive, and the grandmothers,

so proud they wouldn’t trade,

To keep order in the house.

There'll be that white parade.

Of linens and of carriages soon;

It's easy as a sign,–

The intuition of the news

in just a suburban town.  

Interview                 

For my interview section I interviewed two different family members, my mother and my 20-year old sister.  After dinner we sat down at our kitchen table and I handed both of them copies of Dickinson’s, There’s been a Death in the Opposite House and asked them to read it.      

They both finished and I asked them to tell me what they thought it was about.  My mom had about the same opinion that I do with some minor differences.  She thought there had been a death in a family, the narrator was telling us the story from and outsider’s perspective, and the death was in a wealthier family, but she had the idea that it was a soldiers death.  When I asked my sister what she thought it was about she said, “Well I actually thought it was about abortion.”  She explained to my mom and me that she read everything as a symbol.  “For example,” she said, “‘There’s been a death in the opposite house/ as early as to-day. / I know it by the numb look/ such houses have alway.’ could mean that there was a death inside the mother.  Opposite meaning other sex, so this could be coming from the husband’s point of view.  Then the ‘numb look’ is expressing the look on the mother’s face after it is all over and the baby is killed.”  Her idea held up until she reached the stanza about the milliner “taking the measure of the house.” 

It was interesting seeing the different ways a person could read the same thing.  I never would have come up with the idea of abortion from the reading of a “death in the opposite house”.  I think this taught me how to read deeper into the meanings of every word and that there is an unlimited amount of ways to manipulate words to provoke certain ideas. 

Authors Afterword           

I’ve never been very interested in poetry.  I have always found it unclear and not worth reading further into.  This multi-part paper has forced me to do that, but for the first time I didn’t really mind it.  I think this was because this specific poem wasn’t too difficult to understand.  The poem had one main idea that it portrayed throughout all the stanzas, so when I formed my idea, it was easy to carry throughout the poem.                  

Using a collaboration of ideas from peers and a few online sources, I formed a theory that had real historical background.  When I found out there had been various disease outbreaks in the area where Emily had lived it proved my original idea of death by disease.