Imagine life trapped inside a cardboard box. The walls never change or offer interest; they remain brown always. All you possess is a stack of paper and a pen. There is a hole in the side of the box, however, in stark contrast with everything else. It is a small hole, but through it wonders can be seen. Children and unicorns race through mushroom towers, dropping troll babies that voraciously eat all the little dots of color that litter the ground. But there is a problem. Leaving that dull, stuffy box is impossible, even though you are surrounded by fantastic sights and sounds. So all you are hopelessly left with is a pen, paper, and a tiny window into a giant world.
Now, take this scenario and look over at poet Emily Dickenson. She was faced with a very similar situation (minus the children). A self-caused recluse, she spent most of her day inside, away from people. Her family house in Massachusetts was her “box,” and she never left it. And she did not seem content. Despite how recluses can be, Dickinson has a profound unease that permeates her poems. I believe this is because, like a restless athlete, she wanted to escape but could only use her ideas to attempt to do so. And her ideas do attempt to do so. Many instances of leaving or departure appear in Dickinson’s writings in many forms.
One major instance of this is the actual theme of, not surprisingly, escape in her poems. Dickinson often mentions “vanishing with fairy sails,” (p.7) or wind entering and leaving her home (p.18), or a place “behind a hill” which she cannot reach. "In The Lost Jewel" (p.4), she has something valuable taken away from her. The poem, aptly titled, “Escape,” however, perhaps best exemplifies her inward desire:
I never hear the word “escape”
Without a quicker blood,
A sudden expectation,
A flying attitude.
I never hear of prisons broad
By soldiers battered down,
But I tug childish at my bars-
Only to fail again!
Besides certain absurdist qualities, this poem speaks of an inward throbbing to be free of “bars” that restrict Dickinson. I visualize Dickinson writing this in a dimly lit room with a shaded window; heart beating as she dreams of being out of that dark prison. It does not take a hard look to sense a restless spirit underneath the ink on the page.
Dickinson also “escapes” through Nature. Trees, birds, snakes, bees, butterflies, frogs, oceans, seas: all make debuts in Dickinson’s work. I think this is because it is yet another method to leave her surroundings. What can be freer than a “Snake in the grass” or a bee going from flower to flower? Many of the creatures she references have total freedom and have only an arbitrary obligation to the world around them ("The Bee," p.42, is perhaps the best example of this). Oceans and seas are also symbolic of freedom, since they are the only thing between one place and another completely different place (“The Sea” page 41, and “I Only Saw” on page 45 are the most obvious examples). Dickinson expresses her love of nature fondly in “Mother Nature” (p.37) where she reflects on the beauty that surrounds her (a few others are “Evening” on page 46 and “The Bluebird” on page 47). Thus, she seems to find relief in the world around her.
The antithesis of life (and subsequently the theme of escape) also appears in Dickinson’s work: death. There is really no better way to escape than death. Few can resist an all-expenses-paid vacation that goes on indefinitely. And Dickinson was no different, albeit in a more morose, macabre way. Death is abundant in her poems, and she often talks of her own death. So much, in fact, that there are almost too many to note. The most apt example is her poem “Farewell” (p.8). She seems eager, and almost, as she says later, “proud… to die” (p.48). She also reflects on people that died in her own life. Dickinson did not seem content with her lot in conscious life, and death therefore seemed quite appealing to her, indeed, almost violently enticing because of her trapped spirit.
There are more examples of Dickinson’s desire to escape, but fundamentally I think the biggest proofs lay in the latter. She was lonely and discontent, and those are two states that are hard to keep from spilling out. But perhaps the biggest testament to her escapist writing was her imagination. Dickinson was creative, and the writings without their literal (or figurative) meanings imply that she just had a love of thinking. And I think that is something we can take with us into our own world. So, the next time you find yourself inside a cardboard box surrounded by fantastic creatures, remember that escape is only a few inches above your eyes; within the humble organ known as the brain.
*Forgive the odd format, there is no apparent way to fix the spacing.*
Tanner, you have a very creative way at interpreting her poems and I really enjoy that.
ReplyDeleteIt seems logical that the more she got involved with writing, the less she put herself out into the world. The more she personified her own characters (like nature or animals), it seems like she may have found less and less intrigue in people. It seems like an endless cycle. Her own writing became her close community which distanced people and brought on depression...and so she just kept writing more and more in this way, thus causing more and more depression...
And so, maybe her reason for wanting to "escape" is to be able to connect more freely with humans away from this life into the next?
Tanner, I really liked your first paragraph-it really gave a clear picture of what the world may have looked like through Dickinson's eyes in her little room she called home.
ReplyDeleteDickinson chose to escape from the outside world and live out a life of quiet and solitude. This however, allowed her to look at, and see things that a "normal" person may not be able to see in their every day world. When we see things like the grass while walking to class, or a bird flying overhead as we head to chapel, we don't necessary "look" and "see" them. Dickinson could. She saw things more clearly and deeply because of her life of solitude. I know when I read her, she causes me to think and listen and meditate on all she is trying to make us hear..perhaps,to escape even just for a little while.
I think it is a unique opportunity to hear how the world is viewed form the perspective of someone not really living in the world. As we have discussed several times in class, Dickinson was a recluse, and because of that, she viewed nature and the world surrounding from a different point of view. I liked Kara's point about how Dickinson could really see the world. She was looking at it from the eyes of someone viewing rather than the eyes of someone living and experiencing it all. This kind of makes me think of what it's like when a friend points out certain attributes or characteristics about you that you were unaware of, because you can't see how you are perceived by somebody else.
ReplyDeleteI think you do a fine job demonstrating the escape motif in her poetry, but I would push back a little and point to the places where she suggests this life, or "book," is adequate for her. If she is really defined by depression, you'd have to take such poems as evidence of fear, so that she's anguished at being alive but afraid of dying, too. There's something tragic and romantic about such an image, but I tend to find her more playful and ironic than what that image can sustain. It goes back to questions that Cyndi raised, or also Kelley, about her relationship to death and the after life.
ReplyDeleteI think it is interesting that you re-interpret her poetry from the understanding that she is a recluse. I think in some cases this does help the poetry to be placed in better context, but I think that there is a lot more going on. Sure, she may not have gone out much, but as we discussed in class she was educated, had access to media and frequent correspondence with many people. The fact that many of her poems come from her letters actually pushes against the notion of poetry of a recluse, because they are a part of conversation. She may not have been in the town, but she definitely was involved and knew the social climate.
ReplyDeleteI think that solely approaching Dickinson and her poetry as the work of a recluse may have a negative effect on our understanding of her. She did stay inside a great deal, but if we focus on that first of all, we can miss so much. Dickinson was not primarily a recluse; she was a human being. I think that her reclusiveness gave her an interesting perspective, and it certainly impacted the way she wrote. However, I am wary of an interpretation that rests mainly on how seemingly unusual one facet of her personality was. It could be too easy to treat anything difficult or challenging in her poetry as mere evidence of her oddness.
ReplyDeleteI have often wondered about the story behind her reclusive nature - how self-imposed was it, exactly? She certainly seems to wonder about larger life and the outside world often enough... I knew a girl growing up who literally related to life the way she did to books - she acted as though she was in a Jane Austen novel because that was the life she exposed herself to, and spent so much time there she didn't know how to interface with what was actually going on around her. I wonder if Dickinson did something similar, and if it's actually her imaginings or her readings that form the topics of her poetry.
ReplyDelete@Garrett. Thank you, and could be. Perhaps she also felt that the only people she could relate to were dead ones… heavy thoughts for a Sunday afternoon.
ReplyDelete@Kara. The joy of reading this sort of thing is that we to can also escape from our dismal realities in the soul draining, anxiety ridden bubble that is Trinity… Ha, just kidding.
@Briana. A person’s actions/perspectives always make sense if you can see how they think and where they come from. That is something I’ve learned about heavy partiers or drug users. Doesn’t make it right, but it makes sense still.
@Brad. That is true; I don’t think she was totally depressed. She strikes me as the kind of recluse that still reaches out in some ways, but I also sense a feeling of inadequacy in her perceived ability to communicate with others. Perhaps I am imposing what I think is misery upon her life; she may indeed not have been as desperate to leave as I think she might have been. But hey, that is the fun in speculation :)
@Cyndi. I do agree that there is more to her poetry than just escape. And I didn’t interpret her poetry this way because I was looking for an easy answer; it was a theme I frequently saw in a number of her poems. I think there are many other themes in her poetry; I certainly would not say escape was the only theme for every poem (I only noted around a dozenish poems). Even in her poems about nature, I find an outright appreciation of nature, besides the fact that it could also stem from a desire to escape.
@Lyle. Certainly could be. Dickinson is quite the dramatic gal in her own poetry. I think perhaps she had a slight trouble putting the world into a more “common” perspective. Interesting thoughts :)