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Early - Took my Dog -” (Fr 656) illustrates the power of encounter which serves as a source for accumulating experiences in life. As the soul, which is the core of life, is empowered with accumulations, and is able to support the figurative home. To conclude with the idea of home-making, the poem “The Props assist the House” (Fr 729) explicates the process of building a house. The poem is organized first with outer structure of a house, and then deals with the inner core of the house, turning the analysis from the literal to the metaphorical. Each poem conveys a sense of home-making that answers to the poet’s question of “what a home is” (L 342b).
4.2 Emily Dickinson’s Figurative Home
Being uncertain of what a home could be, Emily Dickinson once inquired a friend in a letter for an answer: “Could you tell me what home is?” (L 342b) The ideal home could no longer serve as a satisfying answer to the poet; rather, she yearned for an answer that could define what a home could be. When she was a young lady, the proverb that “home is where the heart is” (Habegger 341) could not satisfy the heart of this young adult, and she corrected the phrase to “home is where the house is”
(Habegger 341). The warmth of her childhood memory in the house on Pleasant Street at this moment seemed irreplaceable. And for years she did not see the Homestead as her home, instead, she saw it as her father’s house.3 Her comprehension of home was quietly changed as time proceeded. The house that was full of her happy memory in
3 Alfred Habegger raises his observation on Emily Dickinson’s complex feeling about the Homestead.
Soon after the family moved back to the Homestead in 1855, Dickinson’s mother became seriously ill, and the poet herself experienced panic and fear. It was not directly linked that the house caused such great breakdowns on two women; however, Emily Dickinson’s unwillingness of this old house was observed and proved. “Not only did the two Emilys [Emily Dickinson’s mother and Emily Dickinson herself] take little pleasure at returning to what the younger one rightly termed ‘our father’s house,’ but the older one’s oddly timed collapse caused the poet to take fright at herself, gearing her own
‘machinery [would] get slightly out of gear’ and that someone might have to ‘stop the wheel’” (341).
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youth did not seem so strong and vivid any more comparing to the tight bond between her family and her. If the logic of “home is where the house is” is still strongly
convincing, the house itself can well satisfy the poet. However, it does not seem that the house itself encompasses the essence of home. It is the dweller who lives in the house defines a home.4 If she did not take this new house as her home, was she going to define another house where she could call it home? After all she was not living in mere imagination and immersed herself in picturing her figurative home. She literally dwelled in the house of her father, but her heart and mind could not be comforted.
Though we are not examining Dickinson’s home from a patriarchal perspective, it is necessary to take a look at the paternal influence on the poet.
Though the father-daughter relation is remote, the daughter did feel lost and astonished when Edward Dickinson died in 1874. “Home is so far from Home, since my Father died” (L 441). The patriarchal influence did exist and leave its influence to Dickinson. If she could totally withdraw from her home and build of her own, she would not feel lost because of the loss of a patriarchal owner of the house since she was the builder of her own home. The tight family bond influenced Dickinson’s sense of public space. However, the patriarchal influence was not on the building of the house itself, but on the way the daughter perceived publicity and privacy. Edward Dickinson was a man who emphasized the importance of family privacy, to an extent that when he passed away, he did not intend to write a will because of his concern that
4 My idea of the difference between a house and a home comes from Edward Casey’s Getting Back into Place: Toward a Renewed Understanding of the Place-World. The book explores the philosophical connection between men and place, and home is the very first place that men meet with. The essence of home comes from the cultivation of its dwellers who make a home meaningful. As Casey explicates,
“the most intense interior cultivation—in both senses of interior—is found in the home” (175). If we want to start building any structure, home is the most intense structure that forces us to learn of an interior. “Without such intimate cultivation, a house or apartment or hut remains a bare habitation, a built place in which inhabitation has not yet occurred and home has not arisen” (175).
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the family privacy would be disturbed. “A will would have involved an inventory and a distribution supervised by a probate judge in accordance with state law, all of which would trespass on the privacy of the Dickinson compound” (Habegger 563). After the father died, Emily Dickinson lived a total private life almost of her father’s, in
memory of him. “She could not stop thinking about ‘Father’s lonely Life and his lonelier Death,’ or ‘resist the grief to expect’ him” (Habegger 566). Keep thinking of her father who “devoted to the public good and terminating in loneliness” (Habegger 568), Dickinson rejected the public and led a lonely life herself as well.
In this lonely life, there was probably a new concept of home being thought of, a new picture which was drawn with imagination, and an idea of how frail this ideal home could be. A home Dickinson pictured in mind and searched for was dreamlike, in a letter she once mentioned, “[t]he picture of the pretty Home is very warm and vivid, and we half ‘touch’ it too, unless softly forbidden—not with mortal Fingers, but those more tidy, mental ones, which never leave a blot—” (L 925). The picture of a fair home, though only exists in her mind, is “very warm and vivid.” The tone of describing the pretty home is cautious, as if the poet carefully approaches the home.
And she intends to “half touch” the home with those mental fingers instead of the flesh ones for fear that the pretty home will be blotted. The ideal home appears to be so perfect that the owner will not want to stain the image of it. Although the
dream-like image of the ideal home is “warm” and brings certain comfort to Dickinson, she does not seem to long for the perfect home. As in another letter, Dickinson once cunningly mentioned an imperfect choice over an orderly house:
“‘House’ is being ‘cleaned.’ I prefer pestilence. That is more classic and less fell” (L 318). In fact, Emily Dickinson’s figurative home appears to be imperfect. The awkward phrase shows the poet’s naughty personality, with which she prefers venturesome to unchanged. “Pestilence” is what Dickinson prefers instead of being
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cleaned. The house of pestilence is, as Dickinson awkwardly puts it, “more classic and less fell.” Is she hinting that a house being cleaned would be more dangerous, since the word “fell” suggests dangerous and terrifying? The house which is “less fell”
because of its pestilence is probably suggesting that an imperfect house will be less possible to hurt and disappoint. Using the term of a disease and a noun that suggests something harmful, Dickinson shows a choice of an imperfect home with flaws, which in her logic is less possible to hurt and dissatisfy.
If home is full of “pestilence,” it breaks the rigidity of order and discipline. The letter suggests Dickinson’s personal idea, and echoes with Dickinson’s “love of danger” (L 39) in previous chapter. Comparing herself to the others, Dickinson addressed to her friend that she would prefer a life of danger to a life of security.
Moreover, she expressed herself as living a life which was beyond the norm: “I am pleasantly located in the deep sea, but love will row you out if her hands are strong, and don’t wait till I land, for I’m going ashore on the other side—” (L 209). Her choice over a steady life was the one in a “deep sea” where she would dwell with pleasure. Stating her knowing of such difference with other people, the poet hinted that she was going to land ashore “on the other side,” which was an opposite direction to that of others. She lived in a constraint of solitude in her entire life, but her soul was not confined.
A home which the poet prefers to is the one that is imperfect. With the quality of such imperfection, Emily Dickinson’s figurative home is indeed with a possibility of construction. If the house in her real life can only provide her with a mere shelter, in a figurative picture she can build one of her own. The possibility does not give a
complete definition, nor does it confine. Dickinson’s choice of dwelling is something figurative and suggestive. The home with possibility opens up for more opportunities.
In the poem “I dwell in Possibility,” Dickinson endows the house of possibility with a
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concrete structure, fulfilling its essence with capacity:
I dwell in Possibility - A fairer House than Prose - More numerous of Windows - Superior - for Doors -
Of Chambers as the Cedars - Impregnable of eye -
And for an everlasting Roof The Gambrels of the Sky -
Of Visitors - the fairest - For Occupation - This -
The spreading wide my narrow Hands To gather Paradise -
(Fr 466)
Different from previous analysis which examines the poem from poetical aspect as praise to poetry, I focus on the spatial structure of the house of “possibility.” The possibility that the speaker dwells in is superior to the house of prose. The description starts with the important elements of a house, which are the windows and the doors.
The house of possibility has “numerous windows,” which suggests that the house provides plenty of access for visions and better light. Moreover, the doors of the house are “grander in quality” and are “more magnificent” (EDL). The house of possibility becomes superior, perhaps because of “Doors.” However, other than the general definition of the word “for,” the Lexicon specifically explicates this
prepositional word as “concerning and related to” (EDL). Thus, when mentioning about the doors, the poet expresses in firmness that the doors of the house are superior.
The emphasis of the superiority of the door results from its specific definition of
“possibility and opportunity” (EDL). The doors of the house open for more
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opportunities, only when the owner of the house grants with permission. Another explanation for “door” expresses a hint for which the poet is probably looking in a house. The door can be a “protection” (EDL) to a house. The door can be tightly closed so as to protect the inner realm and the inhabitant of the house, or it can be opened to welcome the external world. To have a door opened means that both inner and outer space are released, and allows an outer force to come in, such as the encounter.
Comparing the chambers to the cedars, the poet is suggesting that the amount of the rooms can be countless and huge as thick trees in a dense forest, “as the cedar.”
By describing a huge amount of the rooms in the house, the poet is again enlarging the possibility in the essence of this figurative house. It is a place full of exploration.
From a figurative perspective, the word “cedar” is also linked with “a stout heart” and
“a steadfast spirit” (EDL). Would the poet suggest that in the house of possibility lives a spirit with stoutness and firmness? The explanation for the word introducing the next line is that the house has “impregnable eye.” The eye, representing the sight, is here being described as firm and unbreakable. To put it to another extent, when the word “impregnable” is explained as “life force” (EDL), it further indicates that the house can be full of vigor and strength. Thus, the house so far in the description of the poet is full of possibility, protection, and firmness. After describing windows, door, and chambers, the poet continues to describe the roof of the house. The roof not only covers the house as a protecting part of the house, but also has an “everlasting”
coverage, providing a permanent shelter to its dweller. The firmness of the house is strengthened as the roof is introduced, and the vision and dreams hidden in the house cannot be disturbed and stolen since there is such a strong protection. The roof of the house is “everlasting” as the Lexicon puts it, thus its protection to the house endures.
Once again, the poet is emphasizing the guarding function of the house, showing her
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praise to a secured structure. In the ending stanza, the poet speaks of the “visitors” to the house. The visitor, not only known as a temporal guest, but is defined as “dweller, resident, and occupant” according to the Lexicon. The poet’s highly compliment to the house extends from its structure to its dweller, responding to the subject of “I” in the first stanza. The ones who dwell in the house of possibility are praised by the poet that they are “the fairest.” In such a figurative house, opportunities come and find plenty of spaces in it. In the end of the poem, the speaker reveals a welcoming attitude and a tone of hope which makes the speaker “spread wide narrow hands.” Although the hands are “narrow,” the speaker spreads “wide,” attempting to “gather paradise.”
The poet ends the poem in a tone that signals positivity and hope.
The poem illustrates how Dickinson applies architectural structure to describing and illustrating her idea of an abstract idea—possibility. Describing herself as a dweller who lives in the house of possibility, the poet also reveals her sophisticated knowledge of building a home. The structure of the house is built with numerous windows, magnificent doors, countless rooms, and an everlasting roof. However, the examination does not only focus on the construction of such a house, but more on the reflection that how the poet organizes her domestic concept. The poem shows how she functions cognition of space in her mind, linking the concrete with the abstract, and presents the idea with house structure. Under this sense, the poet becomes a builder of the figurative home, who performs her imagination with description, and turns the idea into a drawn picture. Different from Jean Mudge’s examination on the poem as a constructing process of poem, my analysis highlights each function of a single space in the house which reflects Emily Dickinson’s domestic space. As
Dickinson is often drawn to conflicting ideas that are contradictory, putting a structure onto abstract idea, or seeing the improbable as a home seems natural to her. As she once mentions, “I wonder we ever leave the Improbable—it is so fair a Home, and
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perhaps we don’t—What is half so improbable” (L 645). The improbable is beyond understanding, and the poet regards it as a “fair home.” The idea is to enlarge the limited human life with the unlimited abstraction which probably opens a way for Dickinson. If the improbable is so fair a home that she lives in it and is sheltered by it, she says, she will not leave it. Things that leave room for her wondrous mind are attracting to her, and she opens her narrow hands and welcomes all the possibilities in life.
Another poem that illustrates Emily Dickinson’s reflection of space but presents with an abstract idea is “The way Hope builds his house.” Different from the previous poem, the subject in the poem is not a first person narrative. The poet speaks with a third person narrative who is observing the house of this personified owner:
The way Hope builds his house It is not with a sill -
Nor Rafter - has that Edifice But only Pinnacle -
Abode in as supreme This superficies
As if it were of Ledges smit Or mortised with the Laws - (Fr 1512)
Hope is described as a builder of the house in the poem, and the poet illustrates how Hope constructs this vivid home. Strangely enough, Hope does not construct the house from a basic step; it does not have a foundation. Moreover, the “rafter” of Hope’s house does not have “Edifice,” which implies that the support of the roof does not have a structure. The house only has “Pinnacle,” which can be seen from a
distance since it is a vertical portion of a building rising upward.
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The poet furthers her illustration of the idea of Hope, which is a house of the supreme. The Lexicon provides two suggestions for the word “abode.” It can serve as a noun as well as a verb, leaving the study with open possibility. When the word is taken as a noun, it is explicated as “house and dwelling place” (EDL). When it is read as a verb with past tense, it can be defined as “live, remain, and stay” (EDL). I take the word “abode” as a verb. Hope builds his house, and when this builder finally dwells in its house, it “superficies.” The word “superficies” is generally known as surface and proportion; however, it is suggested by the Lexicon scholars as a verb.
The word stands for “lengthens and surfaces.” When the Hope lives in his house, the building is enlarged and lengthens because of the significance of Hope. However, the poet doubts the true existence of the house, using the word “superficies” to imply her idea. The word, as generally known, means surfaces; however, it can also be
suggested as “lengthens” (EDL). The surface of house of Hope is, as the poet
describes, “as if it were of Ledges smit.” The description shows the poet’s doubt and hesitation. The house, which is in a high position and shows only a pinnacle, is probably not real. The word “Ledges” is defined in the Lexicon as “raised place” and
“projecting edge,” which is different from that of its general meaning of shelf.
Moreover, as the word “smit” is explained as “deprived” and “strike off” in the Lexicon, the explanations appear to be confusing. They show a tricky implication the poet has in mind. The house of Hope, if it were of a projected production, suggests this structure of the house of hope is not real. But at the same time, since the house can be projected from a distance, the house must be an entity that can be reflected upon. In the end, the poet indicates the edge of the house of hope is being projected as well, as if it is being “smit.” The house of Hope, though appearing to be “supreme,” is
Moreover, as the word “smit” is explained as “deprived” and “strike off” in the Lexicon, the explanations appear to be confusing. They show a tricky implication the poet has in mind. The house of Hope, if it were of a projected production, suggests this structure of the house of hope is not real. But at the same time, since the house can be projected from a distance, the house must be an entity that can be reflected upon. In the end, the poet indicates the edge of the house of hope is being projected as well, as if it is being “smit.” The house of Hope, though appearing to be “supreme,” is