The Bustle in a House by Emily Dickinson: Summary and Analysis

The Bustle in a House, first published as 'Aftermath' in Dickinson's posthumous first collection, Poems by Emily Dickinson, in 1890, was probably written in 1866. It is a ballad with two stanzas of four lines each, or two quatrains.

Emily Dickinson's death-poems form a class by themselves. Her approach to death is not worn out and unimaginative. Every expression and every turn of thought about death is startlingly original. For example, she calls death a 'dark parade'. The house where death has taken place is characterized as a house of 'dumb looks' and the undertaker who inevitably goes there is "a man of appalling trade".

In this poem, the first stanza talks about the physical affairs after a death, and the second stanza talks about the mental/emotional affairs. The present poem looks at the survivors in a way that is uniquely Emily Dickinson's. When death occurs in a house—the rest is not silence, but a ‘bustle’, ‘a solemn industry enacted upon earth.’ It signifies that the survivors in the house are making mental and physical preparations to get themselves reconciled to the loss of the departed. They move about restlessly and sadly with a kind of hectic activity. It is a renovation of the broken hearts.

The broken heart of the desolate survivors is being renovated. They prepare themselves mentally to get used to the loss of the dear one. They have to lay by for future use, their love for the departed. When their turn comes, the survivors themselves will die and meet, in eternity, their kinsmen who have died earlier. Till that moment of re-union in eternity, they have to preserve their love. Dickinson describes the actions and the behaviors of the family members as if it were a ceremonial rite.

Though the loss of a family member is painful, it must not affect our daily lives is the main theme of this poem. Dickinson has treated death just as a bustle in a house. For her, it is not a serious thing to be worried about.

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Shrestha, Roma. "The Bustle in a House by Emily Dickinson: Summary and Analysis." BachelorandMaster, 10 May 2018, bachelorandmaster.com/britishandamericanpoetry/the-bustle-in-a-house.html.