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Poetess Emily Dickinson’s Seclusion: Living Strategy for Self
Development
DU Mingfu
Department of Foreign Languages, Henan College of Finance & Taxation, Zhengzhou, China, 450002
[email protected]
Abstract: 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.
Keywords: Emily Dickinson, Seclusion, Strategy, Self development, Image, Drama, Painting
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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.
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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
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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’s twice failures of
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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
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 won art territory with twists and
turns.
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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 is like 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.
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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.
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 gentianae, 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
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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.
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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.157- 183.
[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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