Psychology Research 06 (2012) 1838—658X
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Psychology Research
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Poetess Emily Dickinson’s Seclusion: Living Strategy for Self
Development
Mingfu DU
Department of Foreign Languages, Henan College of Finance & Taxation, Zhengzhou 450002, P.R.China
KEYWORDS
ABSTRACT
Emily Dickinson,
Seclusion,
Strategy,
Self development,
Image,
Drama,
Painting
Female poet Emily Dickinson in the 19th century secluded from social life because of her
suspicion of religious doctrine about Original Sin and hatred of God’s indifference of the
death of her friends and relatives, her refusal to constraint of marriage and her longing for a
place for her independent spirit and her poetry writing. In her world of seclusion, her
―father’s house‖, she characterized her poetry by using refreshing language, weird
imagination, and peculiar metaphor to have created her individualized poetry with groups
of images, dramatic styles and features of painting and upgraded her poetry to have set up a
new milestone in American poetry with a great influence on poets in the 20th century. Her
exploration of personal development space and her poetic peak made in seclusion provides
a reference of path choices for nowadays women in unfavorable environments as hers.
© ST. PLUM-BLOSSOM PRESS PTY LTD
1 Introduction
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), an American poetess of the 19th century marking significant personality, was enthusiastic, lively and
communicative when she was young. But after 25, she rejected society and secluded in her ―father’s house‖. Living in the
environment of a rich religious atmosphere, she did not join the church, singing hymns and spending Sundays together with
bobolinks in the grass and forests in her homeland; she had some close male friends, but not married, writing poems and expressing
her inner understanding and pursuit for love in her family garden and her own garden of poetry. With keen observation and
understanding, she created large quantities of meaningful poems with unique and extraordinary splendors and set a new milestone for
the poetic circles in the United States with the broad contents, peculiar images, and random order, followed by Maverick Tude,
having significant influence on the modernism poetry in the 20th century. Scholars at home and abroad have done various researches
on both her poetry and retreat, but paid insufficient attentions to her living environment, and so there is some space for further study.
This paper wishes to explore, from the reason of her retreat, Emily Dickinson, the 19th century female poet’s difficult living
environment, and her paths of breakout with an intention to provide some reference for women's survival and development in the
modern society.

Corresponding author.
E-mail address: [email protected]
English edition copyright © ST. PLUM-BLOSSOM PRESS PTY LTD
DOI: 10. 5503/J. PR. 2012.06.016
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2 Analysis of Dickinson’s Seclusion
A. Escape from rule of religious culture
America in the 19th century was experiencing a fast development of industry and commerce, and people were awakening from the
ideology, but Massachusetts was still shrouded in the strong religious atmosphere. Dickinson's grandfather and father were the
faithful Christians of the Trinity, abided by the rules. Though growing up in the Calvinism atmosphere, Emily Dickinson had since
childhood a criticism attitude to the traditional Christianity, doubted the religious doctrine, and discontented with the punishment
religious doctrines and interpretation of "the god’s existence is objective" advocated by some theologians and even sniffed at the
religious ceremony. For her, Christianity had lost its spiritual power. She never became a member of the church. Even the religious
movement in 1844 swept over the town of Amherst, she still remained unchanged. The advice of friends & teachers and the social
pressure hadn’t converted her to religion. In January 1850, she wrote to her friend, ―God calls everyone here. All the companions
have responded, and even dear Vinnie also believes she loves him, respects him. Only I stand here alone against him‖. [1] In 1858, her
two close friends passed away. She wrote up her grief and indignation mood: ―The pain that can't be released makes people become
the devil! God created all things, but denied us of this tiny wish. To me, He is no longer kind!" [2] Her doubts and fluctuations to
religion also show in another poem: "Faith" is a fine invention/When Gentlemen can see --But Microscopes are prudent/In an
Emergency. "(185) In 1859 the publication of Darwin's The Origin of Species and the outbreak of American Civil War in 1861
comprehensively enhanced Emily Dickinson’s doubts on religious system and God in some way, so the poetess accepted the
judgment of Nietzsche that "The God is dead‖. She no longer believed in god, and determined to find a piece of place belonging to
herself, a piece of free living space, and obtaining the independent spirit of personality, where she could calm the mind with
meditation to explore the meaning of life, pain and joy deeply.
B. Refusal to constraint of marriage
Love is the eternal theme since the ancient times, and also one of the favorite topics of scholars, and Emily Dickinson, the talented
female poet was even better at using the images in poems to express the abstract emotion. Merging unlimited desire for love and
imagination into limited words to express her pursuit and longing for love are the theme center of Dickinson’s poetry. However, the
sad social reality that women in the patriarchal society in nineteenth century were subservient to the men in the existence made the
poetess keenly aware that marriage could make her who wanted to develop her ambition of poetry only become the family accessory
of a man. Love for her was just a dream. With a strong sense of struggle, Dickinson wanted to obtain a true love to serve as a way to
prove the women’s real existence. What expressed in her poetry is more a challenge to her fate than a longing for love. She said once
in a poem, ―My life closed twice before its close --/it yet remains to see/If Immortality unveil/A third event to me‖ (1732). Obviously,
the poetess was still looking forward to the arrival of a third love after goddess of love left her out twice. She didn’t want to escape
from the tragedy, she wanted to experience it and have a rebirth from it. As a social person, Dickinson could not change social reality
with her own efforts, she knew clearly, once lost in the marriage of bondage, any fighting was not able to stop losing their freedom.
Marriage for such a woman with new ideas like her for the women was no doubt a prison. Marriage was just a religious ceremony of
putting women in a vile status and bondage.
Women would stand ―The Man -- upon the Woman -- binds --‖ (493) if they marred. Marriage for women was not the beginning to
march toward the hall of happiness, because marriage for women was no happiness; instead, marriage was the beginning of the
prison. In this poem, the poetess thought marriage would only bring her dream disillusion and ―the Sign in the Scarlet prison—‖
(528). In poem 732, by using weed to be bound by vines, the poetess described the married women who were controlled by their
husbands to show the pain and suffering of women. Dickinson had a reflection on women in marriage, and after intense ideological
struggle, she chose to be single in seclusion within the reach of marriage. The poem ―I’m ceded -- I’ve stopped being Theirs --‖ (508)
is her declaration. Her solitary from society was for experiencing life alone; she chose celibacy to make the marriage of the
constraints of women to be invalid to her, and created a space for her creation of poetry and brought her free spirit and artistic
integrity as well.
C. Determination of devotion to poetry
―The Soul selects her own Society --/Then -- shuts the Door -- /To her divine Majority -- /Present no more –‖ (303).
For most people, writing in America in the nineteenth century was the patent of men, while women's mission was to take care of the
child, and do some chores. Dickinson's father was against women writing, "Poor father, he is serious as the book he read. Though he
accepts Shakespeare and other early poet, but he doesn't accept the idea that the essence of life is poetry. I know he doesn't agree with
my poetry writing ...‖ [3] Dickinson viewed poetry as her life and her lifetime career. She was eager to become a real poetess,
dreaming to have a vast free space for her to roam. She once wrote in his diary: "A lot of people give their life to the care of god, and
I will put my life to the care of poetry." [3], obviously, Emily Dickinson knew that her spiritual strength of inner desire to become a
poetess is very strong, far beyond the respect of her father's requirements. Therefore, after Dickinson failed twice in her love, and
repeated refusal of her poetry publishing, she decided to be single and retreat. In fact, the poem 303 was her inner monologue which
showed her swearing to ―close the Valves of her attention‖ for love and publication of her poems and her commitment to celibacy,
trying to concentrate on poetry and inviting the poetry as her company in life. Therefore, this poem is a declaration of the poetess to
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dedicate to the Muse.
In short, in the time of Dickinson, religion had penetrated into every aspect of life in the western society, becoming a kind of invisible
social authority, and men covered the dominant position in social life. Dickinson knew that challenging the established authority and
customs directly would pay a heavy price out. Merely because of her character, Dickinson was not likely to yield to authority, and not
content to yield in social arrangement and allow the manipulation of fate, but she also knew that confronted with the strong social
customs, it was just like throwing an egg against the rock if she struggled hard, so then, she strategically made an amazing choice for
her life--active retirement and to be unmarried lifetime. As for her seclusion, critics have their own different opinions, and no matter
what views they have seemed to have certain truth, but it really upgraded the poetess up to a peak in poverty creation. Just like a rose
growing in the squeezed crevice, Dickinson opened up a piece of her own art territory with twists and turns.
3 Dickinson’s Extraordinary Poetic Features Created in Seclusion
A. Construction of Dickinson's poetry image groups
Dickinson usually used pure, refreshing and beautiful language, bold and weird imagination, novel and strange metaphor, and
interpretation in unique perspectives for things people are familiar with, to transfer her own understanding and creation principle for
poetry and art through the concise profound poetry image groups to affect the readers, and for readers to perceive her precocious and
original poetic thoughts and artistic tendencies in the fresh bouncing images with association and imagination. Dickinson held that
poetry could produce strong emotions only by words of images that could create pictures in reader’s mind. In her poetry, the use of
the image likes wild flowers blooming in colorful artistic bunches, various in a meadow.
The image groups of love in Dickinson's poetry are rich and varied, showing an ethnic mode, like dense bushes. The ―Sun-Daisy" is
one of the most common love image group modes in her poetry image groups. The Daisy follows soft the Sun --/And when his
golden walk is done --/Sits shyly at his feet --//We are the Flower -- Thou the Sun!/Forgive us, if as days decline --/We nearer steal to
Thee!/Enamored of the parting West – (106)
Once Bowles gave Dickinson an alias called Daisy, she had also compared herself in poetry as daisies in silent blossom of white
petals, looking forward to the "master" lover's appreciation and touch. Daisy in Greek mythology is Apollo’s maid named Colletti,
out of her unrequited love for the master; she turns into a Daisy or sunflower, without eating or drinking for nine days and nights with
dew as her company, from sunrise to sunset, and finally stands to be beautiful scenery on the horizon. But she feels sweet without
regrets, keeping an upturned face to the sun god. The Daisy in her poetry is more stubborn and bold than Colletti in the mythology,
and she's desperate to come "near the sun", "Sits shyly at his feet --", which fully shows her longing for love and her inflexible follow
to her love all the life. Sometimes, Daisy’s love to "the sun" is of no reason, not looking forward to repay (480); Sometimes, the
flowers voluntarily accept the fire burning sun’s baking to complete the flowering season of life (738).
In addition to roses (35), white peonies (31) that were commonly used to express love images, Emily also often used some offbeat
images difficult to relate to love images such as the grave, flies, demon wasps, and the storm. Through these images she impressed
readers with her distinctive innovation and her yearning and desire for love that ordinary people could not match. Dickinson's poetry
images are not of linear expressions of a single thought theme, but mostly the same image in many poems represents the multiple
themes, and meanwhile the poetess commonly used many multiple images to overlap the theme images to enrich the connotation of
poetry.
B. Dramatic features in Dickinson's poetry
Although poetry and drama belong to different literature carriers, however, in their specific creation practice, the poets and
playwrights often draw techniques of expression from each other in order to achieve a particular kind of artistic effect. In poet’s
creation, there are often some techniques of drama to achieve strong dramatic effects. In her poetry, Dickinson used some drama arts
to make its poetry full of obvious characteristics of drama. Drama dialogue and drama monologue were often used to fill her poetry
with vivid characters, leaving the reader with deep impressions.
Dickinson employed drama monologue to express the pain and trouble of human beings, especially the bondage of religion on the
people and their depressions. Although there were full of sufferings in the land of living, the poetess held that the kind of celestial
sufferings were even harder to bear. Because, there, people had to go to churches endlessly; There seemed the god was ever-present
and everywhere; no one could escape the god’s eyes, even if they could escape his supervision, there was awaiting ―the "Judgment
Day" :―/ I never felt at Home -- Below ---/ And in the Handsome Skies / I shall not feel at Home -- I know --/ I don’t like Paradise --/
Because it’s Sunday -- all the time --/ / Perennial beholds us --/ Myself would run away / From Him -- and Holy Ghost -- and All --/
But there’s the "Judgment Day"! (413)
Dickinson used a series of drama techniques which effectively increase the dramatic effect of poetry, leaving the readers a deep
impression. The drama techniques are always very beneficial for poets to communicate their feelings of art, easy to make readers
have strong tremors and resonance, facilitating readers deep into the poetry atmosphere, and grasping the significance of the poet's
feelings.
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C. Features of painting in her poems
―There are pictures in poetry and poetry in pictures‖, this is the praise of Su Dongpo, the great poet of the Song Dynasty for Wang
Wei’s landscape poems; Similarly, the Greek poet Seymour Nideshi, known as "the Greek Voltaire", has also a famous saying called
"Poetry is sound painting and painting is silent poetry." Clearly, poetry and painting is a pair of interpromoting flowers blooming in
the human art treasure.
When explaining the nature of poetry, Dickinson pointed out for times that poetry is the landscape, and the processing of light.
Dickinson had wrote in her letter 176, ―I could paint a portrait which would bring the tears, had I canvass for it, and the scene should
be solitude, and the figures - solitude - and the lights and shades, each a solitude.……‖ (L176) visibly, Dickinson had a profound
research on the elements of painting such as light, shadow, which undoubtedly gave her a pair of more keen eyes and a pair of free
wings for her poetry writing. It is through her use of masterly painting skills that Emily endowed her poetry with an art charm of the
pre-Raphaelite landscape.
Dickinson was practicing the "true to nature" painting ideas of pre-Raphaelite in the depiction of flowers and plants, trees, birds and
fish. The pre-Raphaelite adhered to the scientific nature and accuracy in painting, insisting that the leaves painted should accord with
the characteristics of natural texture of the plants, and painters should use the bright color and strict line to recreate nature truly.
Emily had also many poems describing flowers such as the rose, dandelion, saffron, radix gentian, daffodil, silver lotus, tulips, and
pink clematis. Dickinson liked flowers very much, and her father built a greenhouse for her in his 14 acres of garden, because her
male chauvinist culture-conscious father thought for a woman, growing flowers was a kind of more suitable career than writing
poems. Therefore, since the age of 13, Emily began to grow various kinds of flowers in her garden, because she had only published 7
poems in her lifetime, the local people knew her as a gardener rather than a poetess. Thus, Dickinson was very familiar with the
characteristics of various kinds of flowers, so in addition to reproducing their real plant characteristics in the poems, she was also
interested in their symbolic meaning.
Take the poem 1508 ―Bloom--is Result--to meet a Flower‖ for instance, through the bright and beautiful color, fine lines, erratic
movement and exquisite brush, the poetess drew a group of pictures of blossoming buds with the technique of montage: clustered
buds, surrounded wings of butterflies, peristaltic flowers worms, glittering and translucent dewdrops, breeze, and stealth bees. The
poetess not only drew meticulous flowers in blooming in the moment, but also described at end of the poem the symbolic
significance of flowers blooming---light and hope. She described the still life according to its unique properties, although her
description of flower was not as scientific and precise as the pre-Raphaelite, but Dickinson deemed that poetry was flowers, and
flowers were humans, so flowers in her poetry had a very rich symbolic significance of personification.
4 Conclusion
Dickinson's survival strategy hidden behind poems reflects the profound social problems facing the United States in the 19th century,
and the poor living conditions and the growing environment of women under the rule of the traditional religious culture. Dickinson's
life is the life of constant pursuit of freedom and fulfillment. She was repressed in the process of individual character development
and retreated into the world of poetry to create her own spiritual home, which won her the spiritual freedom and satisfaction,
achieving her life value — pursuing for truth and beauty, pursuing for women's equality, freedom of religion, freedom of love,
freedom of poetic creation, and the eternity and immortal of life. Her life space is limited, but she created the infinite brilliance in her
limited space. Dickinson’s exploration of space for personality development provided a reference path selection of self development
for women in the same adverse social environment.
Just like a delicate rose growing in the multiple crack full of twists and turns, Dickinson was maximizing her free spirit territory of
soul stubbornly in the limited space, realizing her pursuit of life for self development and self-improvement in her "father’s house‖.
References
[1]. Adrienne Rich . Vesuvius at Home: The Power of Emily Dickinson [A]. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1979. p.157183.
[2]. Wendy Martin. Emily Dickinson [A]. Columbia Literary History of the United States [C]. Ed. Emory Elliot, New York:
Columbia University Press, 1988. 609-626.
[3]. Emily Dickinson, The Dairy of Emily Dickinson, Tianjin: Baihua Wenyi Press, 123, 109, 2006. (in Chinese)
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