An Analysis of The Soul selects her own Society

Dickinson’s This is my Letter to the World raises tension between exclusion and the human conditions’ longing for belonging. Dickinson’s “letter to the world” is an extended metaphor of her deliberate attempt to establish an affinity with her society through art- her literature just like Grossman’s essay. Her vulnerability and isolation, is evident in her personal tone with “my letter” being exposed to the wider “world”. This disclosure juxtaposed with the next line “that never wrote to me” further emphasizes her reality filled with isolation. The juxtaposition encapsulates her position as an outsider, interplaying the themes of inclusion and exclusion, seen through her desire for her art to be reciprocated and appreciated by the open distant world. Furthermore, Dickinson covets for a sense of connection through the reoccurring motif of the natural world, personifying “her” as a feminine persona with a nurturing capacity emphasizes through the accumulation of endorsing imagery “tender majesty… hands I cannot see…for love of her”. Despite her lack of relationship with her environment, she elevates nature to be majestic further denigrating her own self status as her writing will still be “judged” no matter how “tenderly”. Thus Dickinson seeks a sense of belonging through nature deriving from the human condition, yet in this driving process towards inclusion is met by exclusion from her sense of identity

Throughout the ages, American authors have changed the way people of their era and future eras think about society and their own livelihoods. Both Dickinson and Thoreau have questioned society and even changed what society deemed the norm through their writings. Two of these writers, Emily Dickinson and David Thoreau, isolated themselves from society so they could express themselves more freely. Their thoughts of society differ throughout their writing, their reclusiveness to society and seriousness to their writing. One can find some similarities in both writer’s works. These similarities show that one should be steadfast in their beliefs even if they oppose society. We should learn to live without constraint

Emily Dickinson was an exceptional writer through the mid-late 1800’s. She never published any of her writings and it wasn’t until after her death that they were even discovered. The complexity of understanding her poems is made prevalent because of the fact that she, the author, cannot expound on what her writing meant. This causes others to have to speculate and decide for themselves the meaning of any of her poems. There are several ways that people can interpret Emily Dickinson’s poems; readers often give their opinion on which of her poems present human understanding as something boundless and unlimited or something small and limited, and people always speculate Dickinson’s view of the individual self.

This provokes the readers' psyche of a lonesome, fragile individual, standing isolated at the end of an dark, treacherous road. This imagery is successfully used to illustrate a portrait of Dickinson, or even the individual reading the piece themselves, as they’re yearning for their new life, which right now is filled with darkness and sorrow. The poem is comprised of five stanzas, each consisting of four lines. The monotonous nature of the poem is nothing gleaming or eye catching, and this is purposely done for the conspicuous fact that sometimes, precious values and things you love are vaporized. With the abandonment of something important, the world does not stop revolving around you and seemingly mold itself for you. It will continue to revolve in the same way it always has for four and half billion years, but now only seeming to be filled with darkness, difficulty and

Dickinson’s poem unfolds truth to society’s power over a woman’s identity. The poem has an angry tone read from the first line, “I’m ceded- I’ve stopped being Their’s-” (1). A defiant and condemning voice aimed at an ambiguous, authoritative figure who is embodied by the capitalized, plural pronoun “Their.” Dickinson’s refusal to exactly specify who “Their” is, demonstrates the power and relationship “Their” has over the speaker. Dickinson interchanges this pronoun with “They” (2) as the poem progresses on, and this larger entity is associated as the church, family, society, etc. because of Dickinson’s references to “church” (3) and “childhood” (6) within the opening stanza. Dickinson’s narrator is tired of being put aside or controlled by others. This angry tone begins to grow louder as Dickinson beings conveying this message and while the poem moves through stanzas uncovering the narrator’s identity.

When Emily Dickinson wrote these poems she created abstract concepts with concrete images. When Dickinson created “The Soul Selects Her Own Society” she used many literary techniques, but her use of metaphors is very significant, that paint a picture for the reader and causes them to reach inside themselves to find the answer. Dickinson uses the metaphor “ Then—closes the Valves of her attention—”, she is using this metaphor to tell the reader that when the soul

Emily Dickinson is one of the most important American poets of the 1800s. Dickinson, who was known to be quite the recluse, lived and died in the town of Amherst, Massachusetts, spending the majority of her days alone in her room writing poetry. What few friends she did have would testify that Dickinson was a rather introverted and melancholy person, which shows in a number of her poems where regular themes include death and mortality. One such poem that exemplifies her “dark side” is, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”. In this piece, Dickinson tells the story of a soul’s transition into the afterlife showing that time and death have outright power over our lives and can make what was once significant become meaningless.

The last two lines of the poem are a timid reflection on what might happen “Had I the Art to stun myself/ With Bolts—of Melody!” (23-24). The idea that creation is a power that can get loose and injure even the creator illuminates why in this poem the artist positions herself firmly as a mere spectator. In these first two poems, we meet a Dickinson who is not entirely familiar to us—even though we are accustomed to her strong desire for privacy, these poems can be startling in the way they reveal the intensity of Dickinson’s fears. She is, after all, shrinking from what is dearest to her—nature, one of her favorite subjects, becomes a harsh judge, and poetry, her favored medium of communication, can suddenly render the reader “impotent” and the writer “stun[ned]” (19, 23). The extremity of her positions in shrinking from the small and beautiful things she loves creates the sense that this is just the beginning of a journey by leaving so much room for change.

She opens the poem reflecting on the start of her first episode, all while personifying her soul telling it sing, but writes that her “strings were snapt.” The string is a metaphor for her mind and the word-choice to describe her mind is identical to the flow of her maniacal brain waves: quick, charged and aggressive. She explains how mind is mended through the pace at which she can put words onto the page. The second day escalates her mind to the point where she loses control over it. Dickinson’s uses of the dash points to the distinctive operation of her thought processes-mind to page. Another poem, They Shut Me Up In Prose” displayed how manic-depressive individuals are mistreated, even shut out due to their uncontrollable behavior. Her state of being influences her judgment and social behaviors and she battles with the idea of “stillness”. The word “still” is almost used as a form of mockery, “Could themselves have peeped — / And seen my Brain – go round — / They might as wise have lodged a Bird / For Treason – in the Pound -.” The bird is used as a metaphor for her mind, to describe the foolishness lodged in a request for her to remain stagnant. The overall theme of outsiders seeking to mute the behavior of patients with mental illness shows the human desire to attempt to mold the unknown to the norms of society. Dickinson’s work has the reader reflect on all the

what the author wants to imply past the surface level of the work. In Emily Dickinson’s poem

This is symbolic of her looking at death as a new beginning as opposed to a sad ending. There is a feeling of disappointment as she thinks that she is going towards eternity but she just ends up viewing the “House that Seemed a Swelling of the Ground” and then centuries later, reflects upon her journey towards and eternity she didn’t witness. To Dickinson death was not something to be afraid of but to rather embrace and accept because it was inevitable, yet as in her life ends up disappointed because death leads to nothingness.

As the poem progresses alongside to a rapid beating of heart, the last stanza halts at a final conclusion with an underlying personification as the narrator states, “The Body-borrows a Revolver-/He bolts the Door-/O’erlooking a superior spectre-/Or More” (Dickinson 17-20). In this stanza, Dickinson personifies the ‘Body’ as a “He” as the ‘Body’ attempts to escape his external fear of the “Assassin hid in [..] the Apartment” ,yet overlooks the superior ghost which remains within himself(Dickinson 15). Through the totality of the poem, Dickinson consistently relays back to the theme that identity is vital in order to find the right exit –for if one exists through another unknown door in the corridor of mazes, the fear will persist. Thus, as Dickinson demonstrates the theme of how nightmares consist in the mindset, she also illustrates the Romantic tenet of how identity will guide one to the truth of the

Emily Dickinson’s “The Soul selects her own Society-” is a poem that deals with love and heartbreak. The first line of the poem clearly sums up the meaning that the “soul” chooses which people to let into their life. The opening line represents the overall message of the poem and the rest of the poem elaborates on this line. Emily Dickinson’s “The Soul selects her own Society” is filled with dark and powerful images that represent the isolation that the soul wants to achieve.

Emily Dickinson a modern romantic writer, whose poems considered imaginative and natural, but also dark as she uses death as the main theme many times in her writings. She made the death look natural and painless since she wanted the reader to look for what after death and not be stuck in that single moment. In her poems imagination play a big role as it sets the ground for everything to unfold in a magical way. The speakers in Dickinson’s poetry, are sharp-sighted observers who see the inescapable limitations of their societies as well as their imagined and imaginable escapes. To make the abstract tangible, to define meaning without confining it, to inhabit a house that never became a prison, Dickinson created in her writing a distinctively elliptical language for expressing what was possible but not yet realized. She turned increasingly to this style that came to define her writing. The poems are rich in aphorism and dense

The meaning and impact of Dickinson’s work hinges on her employment of a single personification which extends throughout “The Soul Selects Her Own Society”. The personification begins on the first line with “The Soul selects her own Society —”. A soul, on its own, is not something that can select anything, or even have a society. Since it is immaterial, it certainly cannot “shut the Door —” as is stated in line two. This personification continues with lines such as, “she notes the Chariots —”, “Upon her Mat —”, and “close the Valves of her attention —”. The personification of “The Soul” immediately makes the poem feel more intimate. The word “soul” infers a deeper, more authentic, and closely guarded part of oneself. By personifying a soul, having it perform actions and make decisions, it is communicated that the events of this poem are neither an intellectual nor surface level matter. The decision to select those with whom you will be close with, and subsequently shut others out, is one which is based highly on feeling, emotion, and deep personal desires. Dickinson’s decision to write “The Soul Selects Her Own Society” in the context of a soul rather than the whole person allows the reader to pick up on the intended intimacy and depth the poem intends.