There’s Been a Death in the Opposite House
There’s Been a Death in the Opposite House - meaning Summary
Mourning as Local Theater
The poem records a speaker’s detached observation of a recent death in a neighboring house and the predictable social responses that follow. Dickinson notes domestic gestures, children’s curiosity, the minister’s claim of control, and tradespeople measuring the house. The tone emphasizes ritual, routine and the mechanical choreography of mourning in a small town, suggesting how death becomes a public, almost bureaucratic, event.
Read Complete AnalysesThere’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.
Feel free to be first to leave comment.