Heaven By Emily Dickenson Essay

“Heaven”- is what I cannot reach! (1056) Heaven is a magical, abstract idea that some believe in and others don’t. Growing up with a religious background I always questioned heaven. What is it like? What is there to do there? What made me question these things more was that none of these questions could be answered. No one knows what heaven is like until they actually get there. As a child I was told you had to believe and do certain things to go there after you died. What exactly did I have to do to get to heaven? Another unanswered question. In Emily Dickenson’s poem, “Heaven”-is what I cannot reach!” she tells her audience that her past haunts her and that she believes she is not good enough for such a divine place. All religious people have these thoughts and insecurities about the afterlife and what they must do in the present to get there. Everyone makes mistakes but sin is all equal in God’s eyes. The Bible says as long as you recognize that sin and ask for forgiveness, you are good enough.

In Dickenson’s poem she talks about where heaven is located. Although most of my questions were unanswered there was one where the answer never changed. I remember asking, “Daddy, where is heaven?” and he pointed and replied, “High, high above those big, white, puffy clouds.” In the second stanza Dickenson says, “The Color, on the Cruising Clouds- The interdicted Land- Behind the Hill.” She uses imagery and says that heaven lies behind the clouds which hides behind the house and the hills. I remember in Sunday school the teacher instructed us to draw a picture of what we thought heaven looked like. My drawing looked similar to the image Dickenson created with her words. My friends and I drew what we thought were pretty sunsets, puffy clouds, and green grassy hills. We were taught that behind these God created features was a “paradise” (line 9) where people went after they died and were finally free of pain and