Death in Victorian Literature
...that one must be resolved to push onward and work to achieve the life that they most desire, even with the knowledge that death is ever standing but a few steps behind. Death is also present in works of the other Victorian writers, if not as the dominant theme then as the subordinate one. In “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning, only death allowed the obsessive Duke to exercise complete control over his indecorous wife. Unable to prevent her pleasant associations with other men during her lifetime, the Duke took a rather macabre pleasure in hanging her portrait where only he could enjoy it. The poem “Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave” is a somewhat anomalous piece. The speaker, lying in her grave, questions who is digging in the earth above her. We see that it is not her best friend come to plant flowers or her worst enemy to desecrate the gravesite, but instead her little dog. The speaker marvels at the faithfulness and loyalty of the animal until it is discovered that the dog was merely in search of a previously buried bone. This is meant to challenge a previously concrete belief –after death we would ascend into heaven and be reunited with loved ones and chase fuzzy pink rabbits. This poem points out the finality of death. When you are gone from this life you are just that – gone, and people will carry on with their lives and your memory will fade into nihility. “Is My Team Ploughing” holds a similar theme, but also points out the treacherous nature of mankind. Man is by nature an opportunist, and often grief can be channeled to a thought that is inherent within all of us: “what’s in it for me?” “I cheer a dead man’s sweetheart/Never ask me whose” makes evident that the tragedy of death can be easily overcome. “The Chariot” by Emily Dickenson projects the view that that life is minute in comparison with the vast eternity of death, even when sung to a rather upbeat tune. Much like “Ulysses,” it is acknowledged that death is ever present; even a sma...