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examine the moments when home disappoints an eager heart that needs comfort. Four poems will be examined in the chapter. First two poems explicate a sense of distance that home presents, illustrating how the poet finds home disappointing in different situations. Poems that are examined are “Houses - so the Wise Men tell me - ” (Fr 139) and “You love me - you are sure - ” (Fr 218). In “Houses - so the Wise Men tell me - ” (Fr 139), the poet states an ideal home that provides comfort and protection. However, not knowing who the owner of the house is, the poet expresses her hesitation and doubt to such ideal home. In “You love me - you are sure -” (Fr 218), different from the general analysis, the examination of the poem focuses on the disappointing and painstaking moment that the poet experiences when finding an empty home. The second half of the chapter will examine two poems that illustrate the enclosed interiority. In “The Soul selects her own Society” (Fr 409), the poet describes a state of an enclosed soul that is not easily accessible. In “One need not be a Chamber - to be Haunted - ” (Fr 407), the poet describes an experience of encountering the most private site of her self, stating an unforgettable moment of such confrontation. Both poems illustrate the enclosing status of the poet’s life, and how these poems reflect Dickinson’s perception of an enclosed home.
2.2 The Failing Home
Though in the poems the poet defines the terms “house” and “home” with only slight difference, in Dickinson’s personal life the difference between the house and the home seems to be greater. As what is illustrated in the introduction, the Homestead that Dickinson moved back in her adolescent years did not mentally satisfy her.
Indeed, she was reluctant to move back to the Homestead, because the house on Pleasant Street brought her more pleasant memories and she spent her energetic youth there. She felt like belonging to that house but not of the Homestead. When Dickinson
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went on her once and only away-from-home trip to study in Mount Holyoke Seminary in 1847, the house stood as a comfort and warmth for the homesick girl. She longed to go back home, when she was confronting a huge struggle over the seminary’s strict religious principles and teachings. Once mentioning her love to this home in a letter to a friend, Dickinson wrote: “I’m afraid I’m growing selfish in my dear home, but I do love it so, and when some pleasant friend invites me to pass a week with her, I look at my father and mother and Vinnie, and all my friends, and so no—no, can’t leave them, what if they die when I’m gone” (L 86). It was in this house that Dickinson defined her home as “a holy thing” (L 59).
The significance of the moving back lies in the girl’s remark of a definition of home. According to Alfred Habegger, “The move brought confusion or collapse to [Emily Dickinson] and Mother” (Habegger 341). As Dickinson reported in her letter, she was “lost in the melee” and was “out with lanterns, looking for” (L 182) herself.
The memory wasn’t a pleasant one. Seeing a proverb “home is where the heart is”
shown in a hackney on moving day, Dickinson made a sardonic correction: “I think it is where the house is, and the adjacent buildings” (L 182). Though the correction might be a result after a tiring travel, it provides hints of how Dickinson is having in mind with the definition of “home.” Home with warm memories seemed to replace home that provided shelter. The house on Pleasant Street took the role of a symbol of home, providing perhaps a little bit of the definition of home; the Homestead was a shelter that provided a place for the poet to recede from the outside world. The design of the Homestead did bring influence on how the poet perceived interior space.
During the chaotic time to acclimate herself to the new home, Dickinson had an inner struggle over living in the house that appeared remote to her. She quietly formed an estrangement to home. She often recalled the old days with her close friends in adolescent years (which she spent the years in the house on Pleasant Street). The
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result of such nostalgia and her resistance to the Homestead caused her not able to
“erase the earlier inscape” of a stable home that she once had (Mudge 80). “Her search for a true home is unsatisfied, even through the act of composition. She begins the poem speaking of her home; she ends it fleeing from the house” (Mudge 82).
Emily Dickinson’s preference to stay inside the house became stronger after her mother’s increasing illness. “As was always the case during Mrs. Dickinson’s illnesses, the poet’s domestic responsibilities had become much heavier . . . The odd parallel between Mother’s not leaving her chair and Emily’s not going out leaves us wondering how much the daughter truly wished to ‘run away’” (Habegger 342). She was reluctant to move to her new home; at the same time, she would not leave the house.
The house that does not provide her with comfort and link result in a remoteness and distance. Just as the poem “Houses - so the Wise Men tell me - ” shows, the poet was hesitating about going back to this home:
“Houses” - so the Wise Men tell me -
“Mansions”! Mansions must be warm!
Mansions cannot let the tears in, Mansions must exclude the storm!
“Many Mansions,” by “his Father,”
I don’t know him; snugly built - Could the Children find the way there - Some, would even trudge tonight!
(Fr 139)
The first stanza begins with the poet’s reception of her knowledge of “houses” from a group of the wise men. The houses, as the poet continues to describe, is a place of comfort and warmth. The “mansions” must not let “the tears in.” Moreover, the house
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that the poet heard of has a strong protection that it must “exclude the storms.” The usage of two exclamations in the second and the fourth line of the poem highlights the tone of a confirmation. The house, as the poet describes, is with certain qualities. It has warmth, comfort, and protection. The description of the house reveals a high expectation of the dwelling place in the mouth of the wise men.
However, in the next stanza, the tone of the poet shifts from firmness to reservation. The numerous houses owned by “his Father” appear to be distant and remote to the poet, because the poet doesn’t “know him.” Thus, even though the poet continues to describe the houses as “snugly built,” the hesitation remains. The poet raises question in the end of the poem, addressing her doubt. She wonders if “the children” can “find the way there.” The children, being limited with grammatical rule of definite article “the,” belong to someone. Then, does the poet doubt the children’s finding way back to this house which belongs to the father? Moreover, “some” of the children even will start to “trudge tonight.”
The poem reveals the poet’s reserving attitude to this house that belongs to an owner who appears to be distant and unfamiliar. Though the poem can be analyzed from a religious perspective, explicating “the Father” as God, it also shows
Dickinson’s tough attitude towards things that she doubts. From a religious perspective, the Heavenly home shows Dickinson’s doubt towards such ideal and warm home. Studying from the word itself, which is explicated in the Lexicon as
“abode, domicile, and shelter,” the poem shows another reserving attitude. The poet simply does not totally believe an easy way to this warm home. She is afraid that the children are not able to find the way home. Moreover, even if some do find the way, they meet difficulties along the way when returning. There is a hesitation, which an ideal home is not easily approached and be dwelled.
Another poem that expresses an even more severe disappointment is “You love
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me - you are sure - ” (Fr 218). Unlike majority studies that examine the poem as a complex friendship between the poet and her sister-in-law Susan Gilbert Dickinson, the poem examined here also suggests how an empty dwelling can disappoint and bring heart-breaking experience:
You love me - you are sure - I shall not fear mistake - I shall not cheated wake - Some grinning morn - To find the Sunrise left - And Orchards - unbereft - And Dollie - gone!
I need not start - you’re sure - That night will never be -
When frightened - home to Thee I run - To find the windows dark -
And no more Dollie - mark - Quite none?
Be sure you’re sure - you know - I'll bear it better now -
If you’ll just tell me so -
Than when - a little dull Balm grown - Over this pain of mine -
You sting - again!
(Fr 218)
The famous poem is known as one of the Dollie poems that Emily Dickinson writes to her sister-in-law Susan Gilbert Dickinson. In the beginning of the poem, the poet expresses a statement of doubt. She wants to make sure if the addressee truly “love[s]”
her. Though uttering doubt, the poet continues to address to herself that she must not fear any mistake or misunderstanding of the fact she is to find out: if there is love. The
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word “love” is specifically explicated by the Lexicon. Other than some general definitions of love, the word here especially implies to “care for, entertain a great affection for, regard with esteem.” Different from that of the affection that is related to heterosexual and homosexual love, the word highlights the care with high esteem. The love is not how the love that used to be defined. Other than the implication of Susan Gilbert’s nickname which is given by the poet, the word “Dollie” is suggested by the Lexicon as “comfort” and “company of another.” Thus, to examine the poem from different aspect, the poem reveals a sense of comfort that the poet is asking for.
Continuing to express her fear and uncertainty, the poem expresses a sense of wound. The tone is full of disappointment and pain. Discovering in “a grinning morn”
and finding the “Sunrise left,” the poet indicates that the “Orchards” are being
“unbereft.” The contradictory description of the morning expresses an opposite feeling, leaving the morning not a smiling one but more a chilly one. The plant
“Orchards” here not only indicates that of “apple tree,” but is explained as “cultivated land” (EDL). Finding the sunrise gone, the poet describes this “cultivated land” as being abandoned. The word “unbereft” is explicated in the Lexicon as “sorrowing, grief struck, and empty.” Even more severely, the poet discovers that “Dollie,” which means “comfort and company of another” here is “gone.” The heart breaking moment in the poem becomes more intense in the next stanza.
Discovering her comfort and the company are gone, the poet continues to say, that she “need[s] not start.” The word “start” is defined by the Lexicon as “come into motion, startle, [or] to begin a trip or journey to a certain destination.” The tone of
“you’re sure” becomes firm and stately. The narrator then recalls a painful former experience, that when being “frightened,” she runs from home to “Thee.” Home here does not serve as a comfort; instead, when the poet confronts fear, she chooses to run to another. However, the destination that the poet wants to reach disappoints her as
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well. She finds “the windows dark, And no more Dollie.” While seeing the vacant house with no light and no comfort, the poet wonders if there is truly nothing. The question mark in the end of the stanza expresses a painstaking confirmation. The bitterness in the end of the line expresses the pain of being abandoned.
Realizing the situation of being bereft, the poet ends the poem with a distancing tone. The statement in the beginning of the stanza expresses a sense of warning: “Be sure you’re sure.” The trust between the poet and the addressee is broken now. The pain is caused, and the distrust is formed. The wound that this addressee causes is so great that the comfort can only last for a short moment. In the ending lines, the poet expresses the disgust of such pain. When the little comfort is growing to cover the pain, the poet says, “You sting again!” The poet does not reveal who or what this
“You” stands for; however, it represents the old wound which is caused by the broken relationship still exists. Though the painstaking broken relationship between the poet and the addressee is significant in the analysis, the failing of a home cannot be
ignored. When feeling upset, the poet does not rely on her own home, but she decides to run to another place for comfort. Though her destination fails her as well, it is ironic enough to see how home fails to comfort the poet. The preposition “to” not only suggests a directional function, it is also suggested by the Lexicon as “with the purpose of” and “arriving at.” It is not hard to imagine how big the expectation the poet has in mind to “run to” another place for comfort. And thus the pain of
disappointment and abandonment is so great that the wound is difficult to recover.
Both poems shows how home fails to serve as a comfort and a protection to the poet. Although in the first poem the poet does express the splendid and protective home, the unknown owner of the home makes the poet trudge and doubt such ideal home. In the second case the poet does not directly express a failure of a home;
however, it is introduced in an implicit way. The pain is there, but home cannot
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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.