An absolute monarch overseeing an intensely private kingdom

There have been a lot of theories concerning Emily Dickinson's reclusive tendencies. Traditionally, many people have believed her to be a recluse or hermit. This stereotype, unfortunately, is very pervasive and is still sometimes taught in schools. Those who hold to this view of Dickinson, however, discount the intense relationship that she had with her family members, and it also ignores the large amount of writing she did. She wrote prolifically to her sister-in-law before Sue and Austin Dickinson settled next door, she wrote to extended family, and she wrote to a small, tightly-knit group of close friends.

Others have theorized that perhaps Dickinson had some sort of phobia of people and, therefore, shut herself inside the homestead. This could be a plausible explanation in part, but I don't think it's accurate. One on hand, Dickinson seemed to be famous for ducking out of the room when strangers visited. The reason for avoiding people could not be because of her literary skills or literary fame, since only a few of her poems were published in her lifetime and all anonymously. Sometimes I truly think she enjoyed messing with the minds of Amherst and provoking, on some level, the gossip. I wonder if she didn't mention, on the sly, to her sister Lavinia that she was going to don a white dress yet again and let herself be seen in the garden for a moment or two then disappear for a week or so inside and have laught with Lavinia later over what fantastic stories the townspeople made up in the subsequent days.

Honestly, I feel like she was simply bored by most people. Upon a visit to Washington, DC in her twenties, Dickinson is said to have reported that in DC society "everybody knows everybody and the nobodies are the most clamorous of all" (Wineapple 64). She seems to have had little regard for the games that society plays, and her poems such as "Much Madness is divinest Sense" and "I'm nobody! Who are you" seem to reinforce this. I don't think that Dickinson was afraid of society-- but I think she saw little point in the rules, games, and structures of "polite" society.

Having said all of that, I do partly blame her family for some of her strong attachments to home and growing reticence to leave. Habegger's biography of Dickinson, My Wars are Laid Away in Books, goes into great detail about Dickinson's childhood. He discusses the high child mortality rate, as well as Edward Dickinson's firm belief (that seems rather unfounded) that young Emily Dickinson was frail and his insistence that Emily remain at home, rather than going to school, any time she showed the slightest sign of sickness. Dickinson was strongly attached to both siblings-- older brother, Austin, and her younger sister, Lavinia. After one year at Mount Holyoke Seminary, Edward Dickinson decided that Emily would not stay at the school for a second. Dickinson wrote "Home was always dearer to me & dearer still the friends around it" (Wineapple 54).

Family was vital to the Dickinsons, and often they seemed to reject nearly all others in favor of one another. Much of Emily Dickinson's letters to her family reinforce this tenacious bond, as in her letter to Austin in which she claimed "We're unlike most everyone and are therefore more dependent on each other for delight" (Wineapple 61). Neither Emily nor Lavinia Dickinson ever married, and both lived their entire lives with their family. Much of these years were spent in the Dickinson homestead, which had been Edward Dickinson's home as a child. Lavinia Dickinson best characterizes the Dickinsons' need for privacy and the unity of family when she remarked that the Dickinsons "loved with greedy ardor, each in his or her own individual way, each an absolute monarch overseeing an intensely private kingdom" (Wineapple 60).

The going from a world we know

Death is a common topic in Dickinson's poetry. In his Dickinson biography My Wars are Laid Away in Books Alfred Habegger recounts many incidents of Dickinson's childhood where death was prominent. Child mortality rates were much higher, and the Dickinsons were often cautioned to keep careful watch over their children, often keeping a young Emily and at times their youngest child, Lavinia, from school for fear of the slightest illness. It is known that Emily Dickinson witnessed the death of a child when she was still young, and it seems to have made a strong imprint upon her mind.

The mystery of the journey between life and what lies beyond seems to fascinate the poet, and much of her writing muses upon possibilities. Sometimes it is a carriage ride, sometimes darker. But always it is a trek into the unknown and unfamiliar, and the poems pose far more questions than any solace they seek to create:

The going from a world we know
To one a wonder still
Is like a child's adversity
Whose vista is a hill,
Behind the hill is sorcery
And everything unknown,
But will the secret compensate
For climbing it alone?
(F 1662)

"Sorcery" is a loaded image in this poem, indicating that the appearance of the world might not match reality. It implies there is misleading, possibly with malicious intent. Again, I can't help but wonder if this is Dickinson's way of snubbing religion, suggesting that "heaven" might to be all that the Bible leads the reader to believe. There are tones of doubt that are cleverly disguised with one of Dickinson's most stable and most interlocking rhyme schemes (ABCBCDED). A consistent and more direct rhyme lend the poem and sing-song rhythm that puts the reader at ease and lowers his or her guard.

In fact, it should only amplify the reader's suspicions that perhaps the final two lines really indicate that nothing in this manipulated and illusory world that exists over the hill or just beyond life is really worth the pain of separation and isolation in climbing the hill alone. What started as a similie that seems to be offered in comfort-- facing death is like spying the hill and wondering what lies beyond-- has terminated in distrust and uncertainty. Are the risks of deception worth the separation? Dickinson's tone indicates that the risks are not worth it, but she and the unknown speaker leave this final conclusion for the reader to decide.

I do wonder, though, if this poem could also be viewed as the soul considering entering the world, pre-birth. Looking at the poem as a soul pre-incarnate it could be viewed as a play off of William Blake's The Book of Thel, considering whether it is good to remain as is, in heaven and innocent, or whether to risk the toils and pains of earth and to be born into a human body. I wish I could discuss this with Dickinson. Possibly she meant the poem to read as I have previously interpreted it-- as the person considering death and what might lie beyond-- but I still wonder if maybe she was aiming for the pre-incarnate soul as well.

The Riddle that we guess

One of the fascinating things, to me, about Emily Dickinson is the fact that so little is actually known about her. She did not leave much besides her poetry and a great air of mystery and myth. Her family was prominent in Amherst, particularly her grandfather who founded Amherst College, as well as her father, both of whom were prominent figures in the community. And yet for the family's involvement in public affairs, Emily Dickinson chose a smaller audience. She did not completely seclude herself within the family homestead. She was a person of letters, and the sheer volume of mail that she put out shows she was not a recluse. She certainly selected her own society-- a quientessential Dickinson phrase often quoted in reference to her limited contact with others outside of her home.

Much speculation rests on her poetry, and it seems in her letters to Higginson, Dickinson warned against making her poetry autobiographical. It's a trap that many readers and scholars fall into-- wanting to make her writing a literal explanation for her life. And yet I'm about to do that same thing. Sometimes I wonder if the following poem wasn't her own little inside joke on everyone that may read her work:

The Riddle we can guess
We speedily despise--
Not anything is stale so long
As Yesterday's Surprise.
(F 1180)

Anything easily explained is quickly dismissed as common and menial. We crave mystery and riddles, wanting to understand or make up motivations and explanations for everything around us. Reality shows and "inside" celebrity exposes gain great ratings because we are extremely curious people (sometimes morbidly so). Great mysteries keep our attention-- what happened to the Russian princess Anastasia? Did Amelia Earhart disappear in the Bermuda triangle or was she killed or did she die? What is really kept in Area 51? Why did John F. Kennedy, Jr's plane crash? Who killed Jon Benet Ramsey? Did O.J. Simpson really kill Nicole Brown Simpson? And the list could go on and on. These things, along with other unknowns draw our attention to them because they are not easy.

There is great truth in the phrase "Not anything is stale so long / As Yesterday's surprise," and I wonder if maybe that was part of why Dickinson remained a mystery within even her neighborhood. Certainly I think she generated a lot of gossip simply by her notorious seclusion and unique dress (she dressed in white). I believe she chose her isolation to protect her insights and to keep herself in the space she needed to be able to nurture her poetry. After reading excerpts of Haebegger's biography of Dickinson, My Wars are Laid away in Books, it seems that she was a sensitive child and was highly influenced by events in her childhood. Some of her isolation was, I believe, because of her family's belief that she was, as a female, frail and fragile and to be protected.

At any rate, both Dickinson and her poetry remain a perpetual surprise-- a surprise that for someone limited to such an insular part of the world, she shows phenomenal awareness of human nature and insight into life and the human condition. That her poetry survived her instructions for her sister to destroy her papers is a surprise (although it's not completely clear to me if those instructions meant solely letters or included her poems). And it is a surprise that her poetry survived in its original form after the changes made to her work when published, words and even entire stanzas altered or deleted because her family who published her works felt some parts were not in line with accepted faith and religion.

Dickinson will always hold equal intrigue for me, because no matter how much I learn, I will still have more to learn and more to wonder or infer. As Brenda Wineapple writes in her book White Heat, "For all people, [Emily Dickinson] is the biographied par excellence: elusive, inexplicable, inscrutable, like the light that exsists in spring: 'It passes and we stay--' " (35).