Nothing

Main Hoon

Professor John. Tyde

Eng 1B

04 April, 2007

Despair

Emily Dickinson was born in a traditional home in England, in the mid 1800's. The author states, "Dickinson was born on Dec. 10, 1830, in Amherst, Mass" (Byers). Emily Dickinson was born in Amherst Massachusetts; a small farming town that had one college. There, she was raised in a strict Calvinist household while receiving most of her education at a boarding school that followed the American Puritanical tradition. Her father along with his family had converted to Christianity, but Dickinson alone decided to rebel against that and reject the church. Emily did not like the idea of Calvinism, which is the idea of, "a theological system and an approach to the Christian life that emphasizes God's sovereignty in all things" (Wikipedia.org). Dickinson chose to leave her home and her only contact with her friends and family was through letters. Her life experiences help the reader understand the dramatic and poetic lines in her writing. One should realize that in the 1800's women were not treated equally like men. One can predict that, writing was a challenge in the conditions that Dickinson lived under. Even educated citizens in this particular era believed that, women lack the essential qualities to the creation of poetry. When commenting on how Dickinson was mocked, Elsa Greene an author states, "Even Higginson lowed friends to make sport of Emily Dickinson as his "partially-cracked poetess." Even after much criticism from her friends and family, Dickinson did not abort her writing. Her writing strongly reflects her life experiences and tends to focus on religion, despair and death.

Dickinson's writing tends to reflect ambivalence toward Christianity, and the effect on one's self. She wrote about religion with enthusiasm at times, but then her excited ness to write about religion trickled down. Though Dickinson never accepted the church as an entity, she never really believed or rejected God. According to Wheaton Professor Lundin, "Dickinson's struggle with suffering and the character of God mirrored the major forces-Darwinism, the Civil War, the spread of industrialism-that tested and altered American Protestantism". The reader finds that much of her work comes from her life experiences, or in other words what she senses around her. She was a very sensitive woman, who questioned her puritanical background, and also favored exploring her own spirituality. She wrote about the Civil War, which was being fought in this era, and wrote about how it reflects religion. Her works also reflect industrialism, which followed the end of Civil War, where much of the technology was invented.

Her willingness to reflect religion in her writing also came from the idea that, women were not represented equally to men in the Bible. She did not like the idea, that women were often not even present in stories. Michael Berglund states, "She noticed that often in Bible stories, women were excluded, discarded, or only peripherally active. These matters emerged in Dickinson's poetry, where she examined the problems of religion and women". Religion often tends to interfere over women, because they are not physically as strong as men. In religion physical energy is a factor that determines much, because it is believed that if someone is physically strong than he or she has the capability of overcoming the weaker one. But mentally both genders have much in common, after all both genders are human beings, and should be treated equally. Emily often tends to question God, in her writing. In one of her poems, for instance, "Heaven is what I cannot reach, the apple on the tree, provided it to do hopeless hang" (Gale). Emily in her writing tends to focus on, whether she will get anything from God. She thinks that, it is not possible for her to reside in heaven. She is unsure if even there is a heaven, and whether anyone will reside in heaven. She is angry towards God, as she states, "God gave a loaf to every bird, but just a crumb to me" (Gale). She does not believe that, God is fair to everyone. She believes that God distinguishes between people, the loaf of bread is given to everyone, but Dickinson believes she is given less.

Dickinson likes to live in her own world, where no one will disturb her. She tend to despair herself from others and sometimes even locked herself into a room. One can predict that, she wanted a place where she can just write continuously. If there was someone with her, she would not be able to write as much as she can alone. She did not believe it was society's place to dictate to her how she should lead her life. In addition, her poems tend to rebel against the norm or the tradition. In her writing, she uses self abnegation to place herself in the reader's center of attention. In her writing, she does not sentimental, but remains restrained, seemingly cool, here and there a touch ironic, always keeping the reader amused. She was writing by herself, but her poems had to be published to receive credit. She met a man named T.H. Higginson, who critics believe is her first and last love. As the author states, "She had known him only through his essays in the Atlantic Monthly, but in time he became, in her words, her "preceptor" and eventually her "safest friend"