She was crazy. There isn't any other way about describing her. Looking at her work and trying to puzzle over something as confusing as The Bell Jar could make even the most decorated English scholar grimace. I tried to read that book when I was a sophomore. It didn't work out. Her poems are just as equally ambiguous. Sometimes, when I'm done with my English homework and just so happen to have the book flipped open to a page with an Emily Dickinson poem on it, I'll read it. And then I'll kind of sit there in my bed, stare at the wall, and wonder what in the world it was, exactly, that I had just read.
What happened in her life? I tried looking up the answer, but was slightly disappointed. As expected, some of her friends and family members died when she was younger. That happened a lot in the 1800's. And, as it turns out, she had a fear of death as an adolescent. I suppose it was the overwhelming depression of loss and lack of a social life that did her in.
Turns out, she didn't intentionally stick her head in an oven in order to commit suicide. She passed out in the same room an oven was on, but she died several months later after the incident due to heart failure induced by severe hypertension.
I still don't like reading her poems.
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