Reflection #8: Emely Dickinson

The poem “Heaven”- is what I cannot reach! the author exposes the theme of life, deprivation and pain. In the first stanza the speaker define heaven as something distant and unreachable as “The Apple on the Tree-/ Provided it do hopeless- hang-”(lines 2-3) and these two lines uses the image of a tree with hanging a delicious apple and someone desperate want to eat it, but is so high that is impossible to get it. Also in those line make the allusion to the myth of Tantalus, in where Zeus kill him with a big rock because of perjury and robbery, and after his death Tantalus was condemn to eternal torture of to be in a lake with the water level up to his chin and a tree with fruits, but whenever he wants to drinks water or reach a fruit these move back before he could he get any. In the second stanza the speaker describe the heaven “Behind the Hill- the House behind-/There- Paradise-is found” (lines 7-8) as a prohibit paradise that is hide behind the hills and use the images of hills that form the distance are hard to climb and behind them are a land that is restricted and in these lines express the deprivation to enter to heaven. In the third stanza the speaker conclude the poem with “Enamored- of the Conjuror-/That spurned us- Yesterday” (lines 11-12), where expresses that God (the Conjuror) refuse all who want to go to heaven a long time ago. This poems involve religious beliefs in where maybe the author feel desperate or frustrated because of how to reach the heaven, and comparing that with conventional views of heaven that are accept God, regret of your sin and be saved, she have different opinion against the Christian.