Death and Immortality

For many of us, death is something we choose not to think about, yet, almost all of us have had experiences with it. Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I could not stop for Death” and Louise Erdrich’s short story Love Medicine, two different views on death are given. In Emily Dickinson’s poem, we are given an internal view from the person dying, and in Louise Erdrich’s story, we are given an external view of the affect of the person’s death on their friends and family. The topic of immortality also occurs in both pieces of literature, and is examined in different ways.
In “Because I could not stop for Death” we are lead through a person’s final trip after death through their childhood memories, to the grave, and beyond to the afterlife. In the poem it is imagined how death will come and take us to heaven, but it gives no regard as to what we leave behind. In another Dickinson poem, “I heard a fly buzz when I died”, we get some interaction with those who mourn the dying, “The Eyes around — had wrung them dry”, but in “Because I could not stop for Death” we are left wondering, who was this person? Where did they come from? Why did they die? Immortality is also a major theme of this poem and it is given in a way that makes us question immortality and how it is achieved. Christian religions believe that our immortality is reached in the afterlife, and in many fiction novels immortality is seen as an object of desire, but in the poem immortality is undesirable because it takes away the wonder that is life. If we all knew that we were going to live forever, each and every day would never be appreciated to its fullest and “living in the moment” would be a thing of the past.
In Love Medicine we gain the perspective of the loved ones that the person is leaving behind, and fail to gain the dying person’s perspective of death. For Grandma Kashpaw and Lipsha they are left with a feeling of guilt and emptiness upon the death of Grandpa. They feel guilty because each of them feels responsible for his death, but also maybe feel that it was the best thing for him. This story ultimately shows the battle between your own wishes for the person you love, and what you think is best for him or her. Grandpa Kashpaw has become very ill and has disappeared behind a “smokescreen” that hides his true personality and has become a different person than what Lipsha and Grandma know. Because of their love for him them desperately want to bring him back, and in their desperation, they lead him to his death, a death that Grandpa Kashpa welcomes, and his loved ones try to prevent. Immortality in this story is given another aspect in this story as well. Grandpa gains his immortality through his death, as does the speaker in Dickenson’s poem, but he also gains immortality through the people he left behind because they will always keep him alive in their hearts, and he will live forever in their memories, never to be forgotten.