Structurally 1108 dances around finality. Each of the four line stanzas follows a 6686 pattern of syllables, as a result not including a seven syllable line which would suggest some form of completion.
Three 6’s (albeit separated by an 8) can be read both as the Biblical number incompleteness and that of mortal man. It is equally no coincidence that these concepts are taken from the first and last books in the Bible which both record the birth of man and his end as a physical being.
As with many poems that have been read in the class this structure might be regarded as a refusal to mourn, yet Dickinson’s content is opposed to this idea. “The Bustle in the House/ The Morning after Death/ Is the solemnest of industries…” We are reminded the movement after death is a solemn industry, a mechanical reaction that denies the necessity of morning. Equally these actions are “Enacted upon Earth - ” Being both a feminine symbol and our collective “home” as humans the earth is deal abuse by the “industries” of “Bustle.”
“The Sweeping up the Heart/ And putting Love away/ We shall not want to use again/ Until Eternity - ” At this point it should be noted that 1108 possesses no punctuation of any kind, merely a dash that drifts the reader from stanza to stanza and finally off the page. This construction ties closely with the second stanza’s concept of “Eternity” as the reunion of love lost in the physical world. Just as Genesis in the Bible records the first death of man (as Dickinson's first stanza records a death) Revelation is a reunion of all those in heaven just as Dickinson’s final stanza is a reunion of love lost to one who has died.
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