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N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
provide comfort; the resident dwells in the home, painfully feeling bereft and abandoned. Perhaps just like the home in reality, Dickinson dwells in her home, struggling with her inner turmoil, and feeling forsaken.
2.3 The Enclosed Home
The preference of avoiding meeting people face-to-face was formed in Emily Dickinson’s youth. Some historical researches even show that the withdrawal from the society probably happened earlier before the family moved back to the Homestead.
The poet’s early anxiety of meeting people started when the family was still living in the house on Pleasant Street, which was often flooded with people. Due to the father’s hospitality, the house was used as an open environment. And recorded in Lavinia Dickinson’s diary, the sisters were often asked to greet the father’s guests, and they seemed to be troubled by such requirement.8
Soon after tea, last night, a violent ring at the bell—Vinnie obeys the
summons—Mr. Harrington, Brainerd, would like to see me at the door. I come walking in from the kitchen, frightened almost to death, and receive the command from father, “not to stand at the door” —terrified beyond measure, I advance to come in. . . Another ring at the door—enter W [Cowper] Dickinson—
soon followed by Mr. Thurston! I again crept into the sitting room, more dead Once addressing to her brother Austin Dickinson in a letter, Emily Dickinson expressed her disgust and fear of “welcoming”
people:
8 As Fuss’s background study of Emily Dickinson’s house on Pleasant Street shows, Emily Dickinson did live a social life in her youth. The house was often visited by numerous visitors. “As a moderator of local town meetings, a twice-elected Massachusetts state senator, and a representative to the
Thirty-third United States Congress, Edward Dickinson attracted to his home a steady stream of visitors, among them, newspaper editors, bishops, preachers, judges, lawyers, politicians, academics, writers, generals, and senators” (Fuss 53).
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than alive, and endeavored to make conversation. Father looked round triumphantly. (L 79)
The sisters constantly had a feeling that the house was being invaded because of the sudden visits, which appeared to be annoying and bothering, especially to Emily Dickinson. The tension of confronting people thus became another reason to prompt the poet to retreat to her private space. After the family moved back to the Homestead, Dickinson’s refusal of social participation became stronger. While the outside world was ongoing with changes and development, Dickinson was engaging in her
self-immersing composition world. And she did not intend to make her voice be heard.
Yet, Dickinson did not reject the society, neither the contemporary culture.
Indeed, it was culture that empowered her to grow stronger in making her own decision. Roger Lundin, the author of Emily Dickinson and the Art of Belief states,
“cultural forces also worked upon Dickinson to keep her from joining the church. One of the most powerful was the conception of the self that she had already begun to cultivate in adolescence” (54). She would if she found the answer that could convince her witty mind. She was encouraged by contemporary culture trend9
9 In 1850, another voice which was diverse to the religious teaching was Ik Marvel’s (Donald G.
Mitchell) novelty of imaginative idea. Marvel’s Reveries of a Bachelor encouraged young men and women in mid-nineteenth century to spend time on “day dream and reveries” which help them develop independent interpretations of “thinking about God, truth, and the self” (Lundin 59). Reverie cultivated imaginative minds, which served as an outlet for Dickinson’s young contemporaries and their
enthusiasm for literature.
to think and to create. Emily Dickinson took the idea and used her own imaginative interpretation on thinking about God, which later formed as a supporting idea to cultivate her own thoughts. Moreover, the nation at the time urged the people to take on their right of
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liberty and exercise such right of choosing and making their own decision.10
In a famous poem “The Soul selects her own Society” (Fr 409), the poet expresses a retreating soul who rejects the outside world. In the poem, the soul who has the strong will to “select her society” reflects that of Dickinson’s solitary soul:
Under the influence of numerous flourishing ideas, it was not surprising that Emily
Dickinson could choose to be one of those “lingering bad ones” (L 36). Religious stimulation was one factor that prompted Dickinson to withdrawal more completely into her own world, and she merely enjoyed living in such seclusion. Not participating the rush of the religious wave in the family, Dickinson “concealed her distress from her family” (Lundin 71), and quietly rebelled against it. The silent and solitary
situation enlarged the poet’s realization of her isolation, which gradually led her to the discovery of her “poetic calling” (Lundin 65). “However homeless she felt at home, Emily nonetheless found within her family’s home a shelter of inestimable value, as she set out to map the uncharted territories of consciousness” (Lundin 74). She became a good example which “inner realities outweighed the whole of the outside world,” and “by forsaking the social world and its allotted roles” the poet finally released the intensity of “the infinite possibilities of the inner life” (74).
The Soul selects her own Society - Then - shuts the Door -
To her divine Majority Present no more -
10 Lundin applied the poet W. H. Auden’s saying to explicate the contemporary collective conviction that “for the principle that liberty is prior to virtue, i.e. liberty cannot be distinguished from license, for freedom of choice is neither good nor bad but the human prerequisite without which virtue and vice have no meaning. Virtue is, of course, preferable to vice, but to choose vice is preferable to having virtue chosen for one.” Thus, as Lundin proposed, when Emily Dickinson was wrestling with
“decisions about faith, marriage, and life in public, Dickinson was hammering out an understanding of the self that was unique to her but also reflected crucial changes in American culture” (55).
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N a tio na
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Unmoved - she notes the Chariots - pausing - At her low Gate -
Unmoved - an Emperor be kneeling Upon her Mat -
I’ve known her - from an ample nation - Choose One -
Then - close the Valves of her attention - Like Stone -
(Fr 409)
In the beginning of the poem, the poet makes a strong statement about the soul who has a firm choice: to select her own society. The word “society” denotes a community, nation, and a broad grouping of people having common traditions, institutions, and collective activities and interests.11
11 In referring to the definitions of the words, I apply Merriam-Webster Dictionary, which has history over one hundred and fifty years, in print and “now online, Merriam-Webster has been America’s leading and most-trusted provider of language information” (Merriam Webster).
“society.” Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, 2011. Web. 8 May 2011.
However, other than general definitions, “society”
is explicated in the Lexicon as “shared existence, interaction, friendship, and expanse”
(EDL). This self-ruling soul selectively makes her interaction with the outside world and even decides whether to share her existence, then, with a fast gesture, the soul
“shuts the Door” to the majority. Without hesitation, the highly selective soul is determined to reject the “divine Majority.” The Majority, with the implication of the mainstream in a certain community or a larger group of union, is described by the poet as “divine.” Strangely, the poet does not capitalize “divine,” but emphasizes
“Majority” with a conflicting indication. The word “divine” denotes deity, God, or a god, suggesting that something or someone divine can be distinctively absolute. The soul firmly rejects the dominant majority with a gesture of enclosure, and “Present[s]”
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no more. The word “Present,” which can be taken as a verb and an adjective, both indicate a condition of existence, exposure, and accessible. The soul closes the door, and dwells in her own space, and not appearing and even count as “existing.”
After the firm attitude of the gesture of “selecting,” the soul stays “unmoved” in her dwelling place. Though staying inside, the soul pays attention to what is
happening outside this enclosed world. She notices there is a “Chariot” stopping by her door, making a visit. Along with the shut door, the Gate, which is described as
“low,” implicates an oxymoron. The door which is closed by the “unmoved” soul shuts off the access. Though the Gate is “low,” seeming to grant an accessible entrance, is indeed firmly closed. The two adjectives “unmoved” and “low” thus contrast to each other. Even an “Emperor be kneeling upon her Mat,” the soul would not open the door. The repetitive usage of the word “unmoved” suggests the firmness of rejection that the soul presents to the outside world. Physically speaking, the Gate is low; however, the undertone within the introduction of the adjective “low” is pregnant with pride. The visitors can stop by the soul’s residence, but the entrance is not opened.
The closing stanza suggests the soul’s uniqueness. However, the subjective “I” in the beginning of the line appears to be problematical. The previous two stanzas show a highly autonomous soul who selects her own society, rejecting the majority. The insertion of the “I” seems to interrupt the narration by shifting from a third person narrative to a first person narrative.12
12 In Emily Dickinson: Monarch of Perception, Domhnall Mitchell notes the problematic interruption of the subjective “I.” Mitchell focuses on the variorum versions of the poem (including the edited versions of the poem and the handwritten versions) to argues the relationship between the poet and the speaker, and the “poem’s appearance and its contents” (238). Here Mitchell sees the appearance of the
“I” as mirroring “nearly exactly traits that exist in the author” (238), which suggests the “I” is
Dickinson herself. The participation of the “I” voices another authority, and the “I” can switch the total
The pausing with dashes inserted in the first
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line of the stanza suggests two indications. The soul, who is known by the “I,” is
“from an ample nation.”13
The solitude grows more intense, and there is such feeling of estrangement to the world and to her self.
The passage, if read reversely as “Choose One/ from an ample nation,” makes firm the poet’s strong will in decision. However, if the passage is read with the given order, the origin or the identity of the soul is still unknown. The soul, withdrawing herself from the nation and “selects her own society,” stands out her individuality among the well-populated nation. She only accepts one. The word
“Choose” is differently suggested by the Lexicon as “accept, receive, desire.”
Limiting her choice of “accepting one,” the soul closes the door again, and shuts her attention. Among all the explications for the word “Valves,” the meaning of “one-way outlet” (EDL) shows the soul’s enclosing nature. The door, which can only be
accessible with one way, reflects the dweller’s fastidiously selective personality. The poet ends the poem with a metaphor, describing once again that the soul’s state is hard as “stone.” The poem reflects the poet’s highly selective way of life as well.
Dickinson’s exclusive soul sees the outside world, but chooses to stay inside and enclosed, rejecting the openness to expose herself. She is the one who withdraws from the outside world, living with solitude.
14
perspective of discussing the poem. Different from Mitchell, I see the interruption of the “I” as a strengthening of the poet’s strong will. It is “I” who ultimately chooses the retreating soul as a dwelling space, and at the same time the selective and independent soul reflects the poet’s self-reliant life.
Dickinson sees her self as a stranger living in the world, with
13 The word “nation” is not capitalized in the poem.
14 I separate “her” and “self” in order to explicate the intimate strangeness of the self which is
highlighted in the chapter. The chapter’s usage of the separation of “her” and “self” is only to show the difference between the speaker and her awareness of “the self.” Emily Dickinson’s usage of the self with capital “S” is also noticed by Mary Cappello, the author of the essay “Dickinson's Facing Or Turning Away.” Cappello in the essay states that “unlike the work of contemporary lyric poets, the aim of Dickinson’s art wasn’t self-expression, but an exploration of self with a capital S – the production of a Self through art but also an inquiry into its conditions of possibility” (580).
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the world being strange to her as well as she once mentions in a letter: “All we are strange —dear—The world is not acquainted with us, because we are not acquainted
with her” (L 203). Alfred Habegger, a prominent Dickinson biographer who provides scrupulous details of Emily Dickinson’s life, proposes that “no matter whom she addresses, Dickinson spoke of herself as living in exile, prison, destitution, [and]
wilderness” (488). The estrangement both to outside and inside her enclosed world enables her to deal with the interior realm. Realizing there is an irreconcilable self inside her, Dickinson is prepared to confront that stranger who lives within: “We meet no Stranger but Ourself” (L 348). She is willful to stand alone among the religious wave, not being washed by the force coming unto her. However, when she encounters the perplexing coexistence inside her inner realm, the anxiety and fear is what has to overcome. The more she attempts to run away from the forcefulness coming inside, the more she discovers her smallness and frailty in the face of the intimate stranger.
In a poem “One need not be a Chamber - to be Haunted -” (Fr 407), the poet expresses the experience of being frightened by the vivid existence of self, in one’s own chamber. In this most private space of one’s own, the poet encounters the deepest existence that dwells inside her:
One need not be a Chamber - to be Haunted - One need not be a House -
The Brain has Corridors - surpassing Material Place -
Far safer, of a Midnight Meeting External Ghost
Than its interior Confronting - That Cooler Host.
Far safer, through an Abbey gallop, The Stones a’chase -
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Than Unarmed, one’s a’self encounter - In lonesome Place -
Ourself behind ourself, concealed - Should startle most -
Assassin hid in our Apartment Be Horror’s least.
The Body - borrows a Revolver - He bolts the Door -
O’erlooking a superior spectre - Or More -
(Fr 407)
In the beginning of the poem, the poet states her idea of a haunted experience. It happens in a Chamber or a House. Differently, the experience of being frightened here happens in another space. The haunted experience happens in an enclosed and private space of one’s mind, which is being highlighted by the poet. Such horrific experience happens in “the Brain” that has “corridors.” The description of the brain reflects Emily Dickinson’s well-use of her knowledge of domestic space. The passages in the brain connect each room, showing the spatiality of the human mind. Such intangible house even “surpasses” that of material ones. Then, the poet points out the time when the horror experience takes place. Moreover, this horrific feature that frightens the poet is even more severe than “External Ghost.” Encountering in midnight, the poet expresses this inner confrontation of one’s self, which is a “cooler Host.” The word
“cooler” is differently suggested by the Lexicon as “more detached and more
passionless.” The line here reflects Dickinson’s estrangement to herself, that this self appears to be “more detached” and more indifferent.
Then, the poet compares such horrific experience of encountering one’s self to two other experiences: meeting with an external ghost in midnight and being chased
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by “Stones” in a haunted sanctuary. The stones, being explicated by the Lexicon as representations for “grave, crypt, and mausoleum,” highlight the terror that the poet intends to express. The second comparison of the encountering experience shows an even higher level of horror, because the fright cannot even be compared with
encountering “one’s self in Lonesome Place.” The word “lonesome” suggests the
“having feelings of solitude and being “secluded from society” (EDL). In such privately enclosed space inside one’s own, the peot describes the most intense horror she could ever experience. What’s more, the frightening experience is highlighted when the poet is “unarmed” to meet the self. The word “a’self,” being used by Dickinson, is explicated as “true identity, own soul, and inner being” (EDL).
Confronting the very being that dwells inside her makes her chill. A “concealing” soul that hides behind “Ourself” is what appears to be more terrible than a true “assassin hid in our apartment.”
The poet does not reveal how the horror experience will end. It is “the Body”
that “borrows a Revolver,” completely shuts down the door. But the gesture of
holding a handgun paused, and the poet shifts to describe “the Body’s” next gesture. It overlooks a “superior spectre,” which indicates that the Body chooses to ignore the presence of a greater horror. The word “spectre” is explicated by the Lexicon as
“terror, object of dread, thought, prospect that perturbs the mind.” Overlooking this higher existence of horror, the Body shuts the door and stays totally closed. The experience of meeting the most terrific feature is the one that cannot be escaped.
Since one’s soul lives inside, it is not possible to run away from the presence of this intimate stranger. The poem reflects Dickinson’s conception of that inner being of the soul, and shows how the poet describes and sees this intangible spirituality. Would Dickinson ever be frightened in her own house, and that the poem reflects how an enclosed house can appear to be so terrifying? The solitude, though appears to be
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frightening sometimes, indeed inspired Dickinson to develop a unique observation. As the poet’s sensitive perception to her surrounding ripens, she turns the observations into an exquisite art of poetry:
‘The fret of temporal servitudes did not exist for her. There was an exquisite self-containment about her from her very relinquishment of all part in outward event.’15
Dickinson’s independent spirit was contained well in her enclosed home, which provided a secure space where she could withdraw from public to enter a realm of her own.
This assessment catches the independence of spirit that distinguished the poet from grim Austin and harried Vinnie. (Habegger 603)
16 What attracted the poet to contain herself so well could be the power of thoughts that has long fascinated her. She would cost all her life to grasp the thoughts that came to her, and learned to confront with the impact these thoughts brought. She spent most of her time pondering in front of her small writing table overlooking views from her window. The habit of meditation was recalled by the poet’s sister: “[Emily]
had to think—she was the only one of us who had that to do.”17
15 The quotation is from Bianchi, Susan Gilbert Dickinson’s daughter. She recalls the memory of her
15 The quotation is from Bianchi, Susan Gilbert Dickinson’s daughter. She recalls the memory of her