Dickenson's "The Journey"

Dickinson obviously picked a journey to bring the themes out because journeys are often compared with life and usually take time out of one’s life. In the first half of the poem, the theme of time is more dominant than the theme of life. However, the last half of the poem obviously makes the reader realize that there is more to the poem and life’s leading to death becomes the theme. When trying to find out what each means, the similarities could make one think that there is only one theme. Contradicting that thought, though, are a few lines that make the message of life much deeper than the message of time.

The message of time is that we are all put on this earth for a certain time; we cannot transverse it; we cannot pick and choose what time we want things to occur to the full extent that we would like, including our death. The first stanza addresses the ongoin

g time process. “Our journey had advanced; / Our feet were almost come / To that odd fork in the road” (29). The allusion to our feet in the road is symbolic of us in our time. The next stanza is about the accelerating pace of time with neither our permission nor our knowledge. Our feet become reluctant; we do not want the pace to continue because we cannot keep up with the fast pace around us. It seems as though there just are not enough hours in the day to get done everything we want to get done. The final stanza states that no matter how much we wish, time cannot be stopped, repeated, or accelerated to our appeasement.

The third and final stanza states that you only live once; you can’t go back and fix your mistakes; if you screw up, you are stuck with that for the rest of your life. Life is not something that you get a do over in; you only get one shot and you must make the most of it, but your personal “Being’s Road” will come to that point where it separates to another leg of the journey, and that is something that can’t be avoided; we must accept death as a fact of life.

The symbolism of time in this poem is meant to show us that time is usually a player on the opposing team. We must accept that and play by the rules. We cannot be reluctant to go along with the accelerating pace of time; likewise we should not expect time to speed up if we feel it is moving slowly. Time is something that we will never control,

Some topics in this essay:
Emily Dickinson’s, Being’s Road, Emily Dickinson, Road Eternity, , road eternity, being’s road, odd fork, death poem, journey life, life half poem, being’s road eternity, life death, feet /, “our journey, road /, death stanza, / eternity term”, mutual relationship being’s, relationship being’s road,