Emily Dickinson 's The Soul Selects Her Own S

The large amount of poems in Dickinson’s collection containing the theme of death is impossible to be overlooked. Approximately one-third from her entire collection speaks about the subject, something that for many decades has intrigued fans and scholars alike. In order to understand this fixation, one must study the poet’s upbringing and religious conflicts, which are unequivocally at the center of this fascination with the theme of death.

Emily Dickinson chose not to conform to the madness of society and shut out many of the people that she felt wanted to change her. She wrote a poem called “The Soul Selects Her Own Society,” in this poem she writes about how the soul shuts certain people out and confides in only one person. Emily Dickinson writes “Then- close the Valves of her attention- Like Stone-,”

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

Approaching Emily Dickinson’s poetry as one large body of work can be an intimidating and overwhelming task. There are obvious themes and images that recur throughout, but with such variation that seeking out any sense of intention or order can feel impossible. When the poems are viewed in the groupings Dickinson gave many of them, however, possible structures are easier to find. In Fascicle 17, for instance, Dickinson embarks upon a journey toward confidence in her own little world. She begins the fascicle writing about her fear of the natural universe, but invokes the unknowable and religious as a means of overcoming that fear throughout her life and ends with a contextualization of herself within

The start of the poem illustrates how women gave up the pleasure and “playthings of her life” (Dickinson). This hints at how women are intimidated in social gatherings, and how they make themselves into the norms of society and make

Two literary pieces, Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night by, Dylan Thomas and Because I Could Not Stop for Death by, Emily Dickinson are both poems that discuss the topic of death. While there are some similarities and comparisons between the two poems, when it comes to the themes, both poets writing styles are quite different from one another which makes each poem unique. Thomas and Dickinson both use identical figurative language devices and other literature symbolisms as they explain their main themes which contrasts the differences to the concept of death. These distinct variations between poems are apparent in both the form, and how the choice of words is used in the poems. Dickinson and Thomas have presented two different ideas on the topic and concept of death. The poems are well distinguished literature devices, they share minor similarities and differences between each other and how they present the meaning of death to a toll.

There is a lot more to poetry than just the words themselves. “What William Shakespeare called, “the mind’s eye” also plays a role” (Borus34). What that means is that your experiences and thoughts will add to your understanding. Dickinson had an active mind and a style so unique and unusual with her writing. Something that was very unusual about her writing was that she never put a title to her poems. Just like many poets, she used a wide assortment of literary devices such as, metaphor, simile, alliteration, and symbolism. “Unlike many writers of her time, Dickinson did not use conventional rhyme, capitalization, or punctuation” (Borus36). For example, she would put dashes not just at the end of a line, but also

Emily Dickinson is was a talented and unique poet; some might even call her strange or mad. This poem, in a way, represents her life that was far from what was considered normal. In the 1800s, a certain type of behavior was expected from people, especially from women. Women cooked, cleaned, and nurtured their families, while under the control of men. It was not looked upon well when women strayed from this status quo. Emily Dickinson did, and this poem demonstrates this rebellion.

Let’s play a game. Close your eyes. Now, think of some of your favorite poems. Can you remember the poets who created them? Did you name off Edgar Allen Poe, Shakespeare, and Robert Frost to name a few? I imagine that the majority of people didn’t remember Emily Dickinson. Emily Dickinson was a talented poet who used her previously devastating personal experiences to enhance her poems.

In Emily Dickinson’s poem #340, or also known as “I felt a funeral in my brain,” there is a theme of change that can be derived from the imagery presented by the poet. The poem is voiced from the perspective of the deceased who describes their funeral as heard through the casket. The choice to utilize a funeral as a backdrop to this poem is intriguing given that there could be many other ways to depict a personal change. Even though other poetic styles like Romanticism and transcendentalism exists in this era, Dickinson chooses to this ominous subject medium. Dickinson’s choice of setting for this poem could be indicative of her surroundings, namely the death-riddled Civil War era. Whether this poem represents a positive change or a negative change, is left up to the interpretation of the reader. One certainty is that Dickinson takes the reader into a story of transformation. Upon further examination, I would like to explore why I perceive this poem to be a metamorphosis for a positive change that emerges from a cocoon of the macabre.

Leslie Price AM-LIT Final Answer Sheet Section I 1. In “The Soul Selects Her Own Society” Dickinson uses alliteration by the repetition of the S sounds. This poem fits the period of Transcendentalism because transcendentalism is about individualism which is being strongly expressed in this poem.

“To be blind is not miserable; not to be able to bear blindness, that is miserable”— John

In Emily Dickinson’s poem , she describes a soul selecting their own society. First , emily describes the character (the soul) choosing their own group to be around and do everything with and having to choose wisely because hanging with the wrong group can cause trouble. Then , the soul shuts the door , not allowing anyone to interfere with her and to her guardians / parents shows them no more than the friends that she chose to be around with. The next stanza then talks about the soul keeping an eye on the environment around her watching her surroundings closely. Then , she gets a proposal from an emperor in front of her house . The last stanza finally states that all of her family and friends known her as she

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born December 10, 1830, into an influential family in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her father helped found Amherst College, where Emily later attended between 1840 and 1846. She never married and died in the house where she was born on May 15, 1886.