true of ‘‘The Dead’’) and identifies an ‘‘unabashed
self-absorption’’ at the center of her work.
Mitchell’s introspection is also noted by Cath-
erine Daly, in her essay about the influence of the
seventeenth-century English poet John Milton on
Mitchell and another poet, Carol Frost. Daly’s
general comment about the poems ofThe Water
Inside the Watercould apply to ‘‘The Dead.’’ Daly
noted that in the poems, ‘‘dreams and memory
blur and combine in a sea of ‘deep images.’’’
Another critic who notes the dream-like qual-
ity of Mitchell’s verse is Tam Lin Neville, review-
ing Mitchell’s later collection,Rapture,forthe
American Poetry Review. Neville noted that while
Mitchell ‘‘sustains a marked inward intimacy, she
is able simultaneously to‘dream in public,’ driven
by a strong desire to speak to others unlike her-
self.’’ Neville commented on ‘‘the remarkable nat-
uralness of her style, which approaches prose in
many places, without losing music.’’
CRITICISMClaire Robinson
Robinson has an M.A. in English. She is a former
teacher of English literature and creative writing and
a freelance writer and editor. In the following essay,
Robinson examines how ‘‘The Dead’’ explores the
nature of life and death.
Susan Mitchell writes about the inspiration
behind ‘‘The Dead’’ in an email communication
with the author:
I think of ‘‘The Dead’’ as more mythological
than autobiographical. The dead and the living
in this poem are archetypal; there are motions
and actions without the particulars that would
connect the dead and the living to my life. The
river might be a real river somewhere in
the world—or it might be one of the rivers of
the Underworld separating the dead from the
living.
However, Mitchell adds that the poem turned
out to be autobiographical in a way that she could
not have predicted at the time she wrote it:
Strangely, and this is very strange, after my
parents died, I found myself in the position of
the dead in the poem, reading the letters I had
sent, searching for photos; and these searches
would wake me up at night. So the poem had
anticipated my future, somehow knowing me
better than I knew myself—as if it had read the
lines in my palm.Mitchell’s comment illuminates an important
aspect of the poem: the inter-relationships, cross-
overs, and transformations that occur between the
dead and the living. The dead’s existence intersects
with the lives of the living, and they work to
maintain ties with the living. The dead are, in
fact, more lively and vivacious than the living,
who are portrayed as sleeping until rudely awak-
ened by the dead.
This theme, of life in death and death in life,
links to the quotation from the Vedic tradition of
ancient India with which Mitchell introducesThe
Water Inside the Water. The quotation is from
Katha Upanisad, which consists of a dialogue
between a young man who is still alive but who
has been told to die by his irritated father, and
Yama, the Lord of Death. The translation of
Katha Upanisadcited by Mitchell reads: ‘‘He goes
from death to death, who sees the many here.’’
The translation by S. Radhakrishnan inThe
Principal Upanisadssets the quotation in context
and explains it. The section in which Mitchell’s
quotation appears is titled, ‘‘Failure to compre-
hend the essential unity of being is the cause of
re-birth.’’ The scripture explains that the nature of
reality, beyond the diversity of appearances, is
unity or oneness. The seeming differences between
things are illusory: ‘‘Whatever is here, that (is)
there.’’ Radhakrishnan translates the line cited by
Mitchell as follows: ‘‘Whoever perceives anything
like manyness here goes from death to death.’’
Going from death to death is another way of
talking about reincarnation or rebirth, an idea that
is embraced by many religious and spiritual tradi-
tions, including the Vedic tradition. The Vedas
(Vedic scriptures) teach that the state of the soul
of people at death determines what kind of life they
will have in their next incarnation. Individuals
whose soul is perfectly pure do not see the many,
the world of diversity and separateness, as the true
nature of things. The pure soul is at one withJUST AS THE DEAD CROSS OVER INTO
THE WORLD OF THE LIVING, INVADING ATTICS
AND READING PALMS, SO THE LIVING ARE
ALREADY IN THE WORLD OF THE DEAD.’’The Dead