I cannot live with you -Theme of the poem

Bring out the central theme of Emily Dickinson’s poems with reference to the poem, I cannot live with you.

Answer: In Emily Dickinson's poems, her experience comes to life through the use of imagery. His poems "express funny, flashy, unrealistic fantasies and passions about situations that discuss friendship, honesty, privacy and personal humor, and books and ideas," Dickinson's poem was the core of the form, a strongly spoken emotion from the heart.

The things she uses are cups, shelves, Jesus, sexton and the doors, all expressing her thoughts and feelings to the partially open door with a kind of hope from a broken heart. All in all, Dickinson shows in this poem that she has no choice in her life except to be lonely and dissatisfied with her loved one.

One of Emily Dickinson’s famous love poems, I Cannot Live With You reveals various reasons why they can’t live together. In the first three stanzas of this poem she emphasizes the word ‘life’. She uses the word "life" emphatically because life is full of rules and complexities that prevent us from expressing our freedom and creativity. She reveals that if they want to be together in life, they have to surrender to the emotion of expression, which will defeat the purpose of life.

Furthermore, in the second stanza, Sexton is defined as "a church official who is responsible for the care and maintenance of church property and sometimes the ringing of bells and the digging of graves". She expresses "Sexton" as a criminal because he maintains a strong value for religion loves God and keeps him away from people who love him. In between the second stanza and the third stanza, she compares the ‘porcelain cup’ to his delicate heart. Emily Dickinson has revealed the cup as broken which means she can also feel hurt when her heart is torn. Cups made from porcelain are compared to love because they are a match for sharing, which is beauty. She reveals that her heart is fragile, but love is one of the greatest feelings of life shared between two people.

Continuing the fourth and fifth stanzas, Emily Dickinson reveals that it would be impossible to die together. When Dickinson says, "I could not die with you – For one must wait," she explains that one must wait for death, when one of their significant other has died. In the same stanza, Dickinson said, "To close the eyes of others, you-can-not," revealing that at the time of his death, the one she loved could not wait for him. Alternatively, a message is conveyed that once their loved one dies, they believe there is no purpose to life.

In the next two stanzas (six and seven) Dickinson further revealed that life after death is impractical. When she says, "Because your face will turn out to be Jesus," she shows through this message that her beloved has come to Jesus. Emily Dickinson has expressed her importance for her person and her face will strengthen Jesus. If Jesus came after his chosen person, it proved that religion was not an important part of his life.

After moving to Stanzas from eight to eleven, Emily Dickinson felt that if she separated from him, she believed it would be “hell”. He saved him because he served the saved God and she will be "condemned" because she did not serve God and kept Him until the end, so she will not be saved. Moreover, in the ninth stanza, "Because you are a saturated site / And I had no more eyes," revealing that she has a scar in her life, since he is taking care of her. She doesn't see anyone else. As a result, she could care less about worldly desires, which are referred to as "heaven." It has been revealed that heaven as “Paradise,” meaning that paradise is an unpleasant parallel to the happiness of her relationship with her loved ones. Moreover, "Paradise" is seen as heaven, but she will not accept the idea of heaven if her loved ones are not with her.

Till the very end, in the very last stanza, "So we must meet apart," it is revealed that the only thing they can do is stay away from each other. When Dickinson said, ‘Only with the door open,’ it was said that the door would remain partially open. With the door partially open, the symbol was not as expected, but it still is. Moreover, “oceans” are expressed for their physical separation. Thus, the poem ends with “frustration,” which means she won’t be able to find any answers to get them together again.

Moreover, throughout the poem, the use of commas is non-existent, but has been replaced by dashes. It is said that Dickinson used dashes to show the reader stress in certain words and phrases. The dashes in this poem can represent the distance between her and her loved one. An example of dashes representing their distance will be at the last level when she says ‘while you are there’. With Dash, it emphasizes the reasons why they can’t live with each other.

Taken as a whole, reading Dickinson’s poem I cannot live with you leaves a feeling of isolation, loneliness and alienation from her loved ones. Life, death, religion, to be resurrected, and in despair were given different ideas in solitary poetry. Her poem is like a cycle of death after death, expressing the idea that she is scared because there is no hope or way to be together in this world.

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