analysis

Heaven is not what I can reach represents the poet’s goal to go heaven after death. However, the tone tells shows the reader that this goal cannot be reached. Heaven, to the writer, is like an “apple” that hangs too high for her to reach. In the second stanza it is made evident that the poet no longer seeks paradise in Heaven; for she knows the closest she will come to a mansion and rivers of “milk and honey” is her own home with a beautiful yard. Here is where she finds peace and happiness, her own Heaven. Into the third stanza the poet describes a sunset of purples which could represent royalty; but then goes on to compare God to a “conjurer”.

This poem definitely shows Emily Dickinson’s view of God and after-life. Dickinson makes it clear she doesn’t find herself worthy of Heaven. Also the negative connotation of conjurer could be showing the reader that Dickinson might not want to go to Heaven. She also gives the sense that she will never reach Heaven, and that is her reason for being so negative towards after-life.