The Life Of Emily Dickenson Essay, Research Paper

The Life of Emily Dickenson

Emily Dickinson was raised in a traditional New

England home in the mid 1800’s. Her father along with the

rest of the family had become Christians and she alone

decided to rebel against that and reject the Church. She

like many of her contemporaries had rejected the traditional

views in life and adopted the new transcendental outlook.

Massachusetts, the state where Emily was born and

raised in, before the transcendental period was the

epicenter of religious practice. Founded by the puritans,

the feeling of the avenging had never left the people.

After all of the “Great Awakenings” and religious revivals

the people of New England began to question the old ways.

What used to be the focal point of all lives was now under

speculation and often doubted. People began to search for

new meanings in life. People like Emerson and Thoreau

believed that answers lie in the individual. Emerson set

the tone for the era when he said, “Whoso would be a

[hu]man, must be a non-conformist.” Emily Dickinson

believed and practiced this philosophy.

When she was young she was brought up by a stern and

austere father. In her childhood she was shy and already

different from the others. Like all the Dickinson children,

male or female, Emily was sent for formal education in

Amherst Academy. After attending Amherst Academy with

conscientious thinkers such as Helen Hunt Jackson, and after

reading many of Emerson’s essays, she began to develop into

a free willed person. Many of her friends had converted to

Christianity, her family was also putting enormous

amount of pressure for her to convert. No longer the

submissive youngster she would not bend her will on such

issues as religion, literature and personal associations.

She maintained a correspondence with Rev. Charles

Wadsworth over a substantial period of time. Even though

she rejected the Church as a entity she never did reject or

accept God. Wadsworth appealed to her because he had an

incredibly powerful mind and deep emotions. When he left

the East in 1861 Emily was scarred and expressed her deep

sorrow in three successive poems in the following years.

They were never romantically involved but their relationship

was apparently so profound that Emily’s feelings for him she

sealed herself from the outside world.

Her life became filled with gloom and despair until

she met Judge Otis P. Lord late in her life. Realizing that

they were well into their lives they never were married.

When Lord passed away Emily’s health condition which has

been hindered since childhood worsened.

In Emily’s life the most important things to her

were love, religion, individuality and nature. When

discussing these themes she followed her lifestyle and broke

away from traditional forms of writing and wrote with an

intense energy and complexity never seen before and rarely

seen today. She was a rarity not only because of her poetry

but because she was one of the first female pioneers into

the field of poetry.

Emily often speaks of love in her poems, but she did

it in such a way that would make people not want to fall in

love. She writes of parting, separation and loss. This is

supported by the experiences she felt with Wadsworth and

Otis P. Lord.

Not with a club the heart is broken,

nor with a stone;

A whip so small you could not see it,

I’ve known

This seems to be an actual account of the emotions she

experienced during her relationship with Otis Lord.

Individuality played a pervasive role in her life as

a result of her bout with separation. Emily did not conform

to society. She did not believe it was society’s place to

dictate to her how she should lead her life. Her poems

reflect this sense of rebellion and revolution against

tradition.

From all the jails the boys and girls

Ecstatically leap,-

Beloved, only afternoon

That prison doesn’t keep.

In this poem Emily shows her feelings towards formalized

schooling. Being a product of reputable college one would

think that she would be in favor of this. But as her

beliefs in transcendentalism grew so did her belief in

individuality.

Emily also went against the Church which was an

extreme rarity of the time. Similar to many other that

shared her beliefs she too did not think that a set religion

was the way for salvation.

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church;

I keep it staying at home,

With a bobolike for a chorister,

With an orchard for a dome.

According to this poem Emily clearly states that nature is

her source of guidance and she has little need for the

Church as an institution.

Like Thoreau, Emily believed that people need to

understand nature before they could begin to comprehend

humanity because humanity was just a part of nature. Unlike

many other she felt that nature was beautiful and must be

understood.

Has it feet like water-lilies?

Has it feathers like a bird?

Is it brought from famous countries

Of which I have never heard?

(Will there really be a morning?)

Further on in the poem she goes on to ask if the scholar or

“some wise man from the skies” knows where to find morning.

It can be inferred that morning, something so common place

and taken for granted, cannot be grasped by even the

greatest so called minds.

Emily also saw the frightful part of nature, death

was an extension of the natural order. Probably the most

prominent theme in her writing is death. She took death in

a relatively casual way when compared to the puritan beliefs

that surrounded her life. Death to her is just the next

logical step to life and compares it to a carriage ride, or

many other common place happenings.

Because I could not stop for Death-

He kindly stopped for me-

The Carriage held but just Ourselves-

And Immortality.

Life according to Emily is brief and the people living out

their lives have little control.

In this short life

That only lasts an hour,

How much, how little,

Is within out power!

However non-religious she may appear and however

insignificant she believes life to be she does however show

some signs in accepting life after death.

This world is not conclusion;

A sequel stands beyond,

Invisible, as music,

But positive as sound.

To Emily the most important things in her life were

religion, individuality, nature and death. She may not have

believed in God but He did have a profound impact throughout

her childhood. Emily and Emerson alike felt the most

important thing was to maintain ones individuality as she

did. She was fascinated by both nature and death and she

attempted to explain both in her writings.