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Images of Hope for Immortality Pervading the Patterns of Doubt in Emily Dickinson's Death Poetry

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Images of Hope for Immortality Pervading the Patterns of Doubt in Emily Dickinson's Death Poetry Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Master's Theses Theses and Dissertations 1980 Images of Hope for Immortality Pervading the Patterns of Doubt in Emily Dickinson's Death Poetry Nicholas Desmond Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_theses Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Desmond, Nicholas, "Images of Hope for Immortality Pervading the Patterns of Doubt in Emily Dickinson's Death Poetry" (1980). Master's Theses. 3258. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_theses/3258 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 1980 Nicholas Desmond IMAGES OF HOPE FOR IMMORTALITY PERVADING THE PATTERNS OF DOUBT IN EMILY DICKINSON'S DEATH POETRY by Nicholas Desmond A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Loyola University of Chicago in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts December 1980 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I gratefully acknowledge a number of people whose love, support, and hard work helped to see this project to a successful conclusion. First in my mind, comes my parents and grandmother without whose love and support I would never have made it through college. Next comes my friends at Niles College, especially Ken Baker. They patiently proof­ read and scrutinized the ideas presented in this paper. I must also include my typists, Linda and Kathy, who generously gave of their time to help me along with this work. Lastly, and most importantly, I owe undying support to my committee who supported my ideas even when they did not always agree. Especially, I wish to thank Dr. Rosemary Hartnett for her continual support in helping to turn a dream into a reality. ii VITA The author, Nicholas Robert Desmond, is the son of Frank George and Shirley (Myers) Desmond. He was born 17 October 1958 in Melrose Park, Illinois. His elementary education was obtained at Saint Zachary School in Des Plaines, Illinois, and his secondary education was obtained at Saint Viator High School in Arlington Heights, Illinois, where he graduated in 1976. In September, 1976, he entered Niles College of Loyola University of Chicago, and in May, 1979, received the degree of Bachelor of Arts with a major in English, magna cum laude. While attending Niles College, he was a member of the student government every year. In March, 1979, he was awarded an assistantship in English at Loyola University of Chicago. He was awarded the Master of Arts in English in January, 1981. In September, 1980, he entered Saint Mary of the Lake Seminary. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii LIFE .... iii LIST OF POEMS v INTRODUCTION 1 DARK CROWDS OF DOUBT 7 THE DELICATE BALANCE BETWEEN HOPE AND DOUBT 27 REMElVIBRANCES OF DEATH . 42 FAITH AS THE BASIS OF HOPE . 53 NOTES . 6J REFERENCES . 76 iv LIST OF POEMS Poem Page 1728 Is Immortality a bane . 4 1724 How dare the robins sing . 7 1021 Far from Love . • . • • • • • • . • • . 12 1599 Though the great Waters sleep • • • • . 14 1574 No ladder needs the bird but skies . 17 1718 Drowning is not so pitiful •.•. 20 241 I like a look of Agony . • . 2J 465 I heard a Fly Buzz . 27 1064 To help our Bleaker Parts . J1 19J I shall know why . • . JJ 547 I've seen a Dying Eye . J6 46J I live with Him ..• . J8 1149 I noticed People disappeared . 42 856 There is a finished feeling . 44 816 A Death blow is a Life blow . 47 712 Because I could not stop for Death . 49 76 Exultation is the going ...•. • • . 53 1052 I never saw a Moor . 58 14JJ How brittle are the Piers . 59 v INTRODUCTION Emily Dickinson is a poet of doubts. She is also a poet of hopes. She was a searching person and her searching is reflected in her poetry. Much of Dickinson's poetry deals with death: either the moment of death or concerning the possibility of what comes after death. 1 That is Emily Dickinson's pursuit--to find out what comes after death, if anything at all. For Dickinson, the knowledge of her own immortality is essential to her very life. "Death became for Emily the supreme touchstone for life."2 Without immortality, life itself is useless. "To her, then, the essence of poetry was a living breath," and her life became a struggle to know if immortality were possible.J And so, much of Dickinson's poetry incorporates this struggle to verify .her own immortality. 4 As Dickinson tries to articulate her struggle through poetry, she tends toward ambiguity in her verse.5 She sees more in her images than most critics are willing to admit is there, and much more than the average reader cares to con- sider in poetry. Those who do not fault Dickinson for lacking the "proper" accidentals of poetry (rhyme, regular meter, etc.) almost inevitably charge her with "obscurity."6 "There is always a margin of ambiguity Jn our final esti- mate of even her most extraordinary work, and though the 1 2 margin may seem to diminish or disappear in a given reading of a favorite poem, one feels no certainty that it will not reappear more obviously in the next reading."? Dickinson defies the simpler approaches to understanding poetry be- cause she is not dealing with the simpler human emotions. Dickinson is struggling with questions of immortality in many of her poems, and that she is able to express that struggle so well, albeit so ambiguously, is remarkable. To achieve just the right effect in her poems, Dickinson pains­ takingly chose the words that the critics call "ambiguous." Oftentimes, she would change individual words in her manu- scr1p. t s as many as t en or t we 1 ve t"1mes. 8 E ven thoug h Dickinson masters the art of "le mot just," most readers are disturbed by her ambiguity. This is because Dickinson has no more of an answer to her questions than anyone else does.9 Dickinson does not struggle with the question of immortality on a grand scale. She questions her own immor- tality and, therefore, the issue is very personal to her. 10 Dickinson would be glad to seek an immortal way of life--if she could only be sure it existed. She struggles with this question between herself and her God. Like the Renaissance mind, Dickinson conceives an unceasing conflict between her bestial and her angelic nature. 11 But Dickinson is not a religious poet; she uses "the symbols of religion as- a means of extending the significance of inner, personal feeling and conflict."12 The issue of immortality is too close to her J heart to be treated in any other way, and so Dickinson looks to others who also treat the soul on a very personal level to guide her, to prove to her (if possible) that she is immortal. She goes to Emerson and Thoreau to show her her own immortality. 13 They, in turn, tell her that all of nature echoes the immortality of the person, but she, in looking at nature, finds that it echoes only its own immor­ tality. Thus, Dickinson is left alone again to search for that last reassurance to her immortality. What keeps Dickinson searching is inherent to all people. Everyone feels the need to be immortal in some way. (It's found in Plato, Aquinas, Shakespeare, and all reli­ gions.) But Dickinson is not considering what immortality is; she is demanding it for herself. She acutely feels the need for her life to mean something. Even her puritanical religion cannot offer her the reassurance that her life will mean something when it is finished. Excepting "a few flip- · pant references, the poetry seems to manifest a sincere and abiding faith in God." 14 That faith only belongs to Dickin- son, though; it is not part of her religious upbringing. Dickinson holds onto her personal faith as the only possi- bility she has for finding irnmortali ty, but she knows that she must go beyond the religion she has been taught if she is to believe that immortality is offered to her. For the most part, Dickinson cannot believe in her own immortality, but she always hopes for it. She does not 4 understand her own consummate quest for something when she carillot find any hopeful symbols leading to it. Dickinson easily sees the pain in life. She also watches people groping towards an after-life--an after-life she is not sure exists. But if this eternity does exist, will the life I, after be better than the life now? 1728 Is Immortality a bane That men are so oppressed? 15 In this poem, Dickinson confronts her worst possible fears of what immortality is. Basically, she is asking if that which she seeks is detrimental for man. The quest for immortality lives on tyranny, trampling down, and weighing heavily on man's mind. Does this mean that immortality is itself contained in these actions? If she were to ask only the first line, then we could say that immortality is the cause of. death, but only a death here on earth. In consi- deration with the second line, though, this "bane" becomes a deadly poison in itself that "oppresses" or tyrannizes men. 16 It harries and harasses them so that all their life is spent seeking this "Immortality." The underlying paradox of her question becomes "seeking life brings death." What Dickinson needs to know and what she tries to find in nature, religion, or through others is whether or not death leads to new life.
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