Dickinson uses the idea of  gaining knowledge and experience as proof of being alive. One of the first things death’s passenger encounters on her journey to the afterlife is a school “ where children strove”. School is an institue of learning, were children learn the skills that will carry them throughout their lives. Even if the children shad conflict and struggled they still engaged in challenges of life and gained the knowledge to evolve. Dickinson’s use of the school image shows that learning is an essential part of life. The coupling of the image of the school and children striving, hints at the struggles we face in life to full “learn our lessons”, but more importantly it re-affirms that struggling and being taught are intricate part of everyone’s life.

Water is taught by thirst also reiterates this point. In the poem Dickinson compares opposites to define what the former is. She offers us an explation of creation by describing what it is not. In the poem “ water is taught by thirst” it is created and formed by  what it proves it isn’t. The grouping of the two foils creates a parallel between the two that compliment each other. On one hand  it may seem that water could not truly be formed by thirst, water is what kills thirst. However by suggesting water is taught by thirst she also suggests that all objects are created by their opposites. If we use this logic, life is taught by death. Just as water is taught what it is not through the struggle of opposing thirst and children strive through school, Life to is taught through a series of conflicts and struggles only to prove it’s difference between death

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