\documentstyle[12pt]{article}
\setlength{\parskip}{.12in}
\setlength{\parindent}{.6in}
\hyphenation{English grammar}
\newcommand{\sspace}{\renewcommand{\baselinestretch}{1}\small\normalsize}
\newcommand{\dspace}{\renewcommand{\baselinestretch}{1.8}\small\normalsize}
\begin{document}

\begin{titlepage}
\vspace*{1in}
\begin{center}
{\LARGE Emily Dickinson: 
\medskip\medskip \\ 
At the Edge of the Unknown}
\bigskip\bigskip \\
{\Large 21.006 Paper III}
\bigskip\bigskip\bigskip \\
{\large Juliet C. Bourne 
\medskip\medskip \\
April 20, 1989}
\end{center}
\end{titlepage}

\newpage
\dspace
Emily Dickinson, through her poems, addresses many of the
unanswerable, or controversial, questions in philosophy and life. To
detail all that she addresses would take quite awhile, so I will only
examine a few of her poems.  Her views and perceptions of life and
society which I find most interesting were those about ``madness,''
the strength of the heart, and, of course, death.  The first two views
are straightforward; hardly anything is left up in the air.  The last,
however, is the point where Dickinson approaches the unknown.  She
characteristically leaves questions unanswered, an action which has a
meaning within itself.  By what Dickinson asserts and leaves untouched
gives a sense of what, to her, is natural for people to understand and
what is simply beyond comprehension.

Dickinson makes many comments about society in her poems.  Usually
these poems make a clear statement and thus will serve as a good
contrast to the poems where she addresses the unknown.  One such poem
which makes a statement about society begins ``Much Madness is
divinest Sense ---'' (1062).  It continues with ``Much Sense --- the
starkest Madness ---'' (l. 3).  In the first three lines, Dickinson
juxtaposes madness and sense.  At first one might think that she means
that having too much sense it like madness, and vice versa.  However,
in the rest of the poem, she reveals a more direct and harsher view.
It is the majority, she says, that asserts that madness is sense, and
vice versa, and anyone who rejects this notion is ``straightaway
dangerous ---/ And handled with a Chain ---'' (ll. 6-7).  Dickinson is
commenting on the insanity of society, which insists that madness is
the greatest sense, and on the injustice of a society where no other
view but that of the majority is tolerated and all others are put in
chains.  

Another poem in which Dickinson makes a clear statement, this time
about the human condition, is ``The Heart asks Pleasure --- first
---'' (1066).  In this poem she addresses the heart and how it deals
with life.  If we take ``Heart'' to be analogous to a person,
Dickinson asserts that first and foremost a person desires pleasure
out of life.  She continues from pleasure down a list of what a heart,
or a person, asks of life:  barring pleasure, excuse from pain;
barring that, to go to sleep;  and, finally, barring all else, ``if it
should be / The will of its Inquisitor / The privilege to die ---''
(ll.6-8).   This is a strong statement about the extent to which a
person's heart can endure suffering and will go to avoid suffering.
If it comes to a choice between suffering without reprieve through
drugs or sleep, a person would rather die because his hearts cannot
endure the suffering.  The heart is fragile and cannot withstand much
pain unaided.  

Thus far, I have brought forward two poems which have solid statements
abut their subjects: one, the insanity and injustice of society; the
other, the fragility of the human heart.  A major portion of
Dickinson's poems, however, do not have such concrete meanings or
resolutions.  Especially in those poems that deal with death or
infinity, Dickinson leaves the question she poses unanswered, as if
she is stopping at the edge of a high precipice.  In the first of the
three poems I shall examine, entitled ``Nature --- sometimes sears a
Sapling ---'' (1060), she addresses death.  In Nature, she finds that
nothing is wasted; when something is seares or scalped, it is
recollected by Nature's ``Green People.'' When something does die, it
is of necessity.  ``Fainter Leaves --- to Further Seasons'' (l. 5)
implies that when leaves grow faint and die, it is to foster new
seasons of trees and leaves.  After pointing out the commonplace, the
known, of Nature, she leaps to the unknown or unexplained.  The last
two lines state: ``We --- who have the Souls ---/ Die oftener --- Not
so vitally ---''.  In these lines she raises the question: Why do
people die for no good purpose or reason? Why do those creatures who
have the divine souls, die without necessity?  She ends the poem
abruptly here, without attempting to answer or expand upon this
age-old question about death.

Another poem in which Dickinson peers over her precipice into the
unknown is ``The difference between Despair'' (1059).  In this poen
Dickinson attempts to examine the difference between despair and fear.
However, in doing so, she finds that the difference is as undefinable
as the moment between the instant of a wreck and after the wreck has
happened.  In other words, and in most cases, this is the moment of
death or apparent death.  At this moment,

\sspace
\begin{verbatim}
		The Mind is smooth --- no Motion ---
		Contented as the Eye
		Upon the Forehead of a Bust ---
		That knows --- it cannot see ---
		(ll. 5-8)
\end{verbatim}
\dspace

\noindent
She asserts that at the moment of death  the mind is calm and
contented but it cannot see anything, as a statue's eyes see nothing. 
Once again, Dickinson approaches the indefinable, but she goes no
farther in explaining anything beyond the instant of death, as she
imagines it.  

In several poems Dickinson's imagination takes her even further into
the unknown.  In ``Because I could not stop for Death ---'' (1070), 
she takes a voyage into eternity in Death's carriage.  Yet, in spite
of her imagination, we gain no more insight into death.  What she
describes could easily be what a dying person sees, such as flashes on
children in the schoolyard, fields of grain, and a grave and
gravestone.  She goes no farther than these images of the moments
before death. She does not try to explain the reason for death nor
what follows death.  She leaves her readers on the precipice from
which she observes Death and Eternity:  ``the Horses' Heads / Were
toward Eternity ---'' (ll. 23-24).

Thus, a sharp contrast appears between poems in which Dickinson makes
a statement about society or human nature and those in which she
approaches an unknown and unexperienced quantity, such as death or
eternity.  In those poems which make statements, she, by necessity, is
definitive and leaves little or nothing to the imagination.  However,
in those poems in which she is an explorer in uncharted waters, she
stops abruptly and goes no farther, leaving questions unanswered.  In
``Nature --- sometimes sears a Sapling ---'', the question, ``Why do
people die?'', is abandoned.  In ``The difference between Despair'',
Dickinson does not answer the question, ``What is it that we, like
statues, cannot see?''.  In ``Because I could not stop for Death
---'', she leaves the reader with the question, ``What is Eternity?''.
These questions that she leaves unanswered shows that she feels that
death, eternity, the beyond, are all subjects beyond human
comprehension.  Society and some of human nature can be understood,
but, for the lack of experience, death and the like can never be fully
understood by a human being.  It is natural for a person to
understand, or attempt to understand, the world around him;  it is
unnatural, however, for a person to understand that which is beyond
him.  People may stand with Emily Dickinson on her precipice above the
unknown, but they will, like Dickinson, always stop short at the edge,
never comprehending what is beyond their precipice, only glimpsing at
what the darkness beyond it holds.

\end{document}
