The Portrayal of Emily Dickinsons Mental Pain Through her Poetry

Poetry is one of the most truthful forms of writing because its easy to
pour out your innermost thoughts on the page. Emily Dickinson does just this
in all her poems, which is why the reader can learn a lot about mental pain.
Mental pain includes depression, suicidal thoughts, agony and an overall
hurting which has no solution. While not all of Dickinsons poems are about
mental pain, the ones that are, strike me as her most truthful ones. We all
experience mental pain at some point in our lives, which is why Dickinsons
poems strike such a cord with readers. In the Norton Anthology it states that
in the 1860s Emily Dickinson suffered greatly from eye pain and was worried
about losing her vision. She saw lots of doctors, but the issue was never fully
resolved. In addition to this, Dickinson became depressed while attending
Mount Holyoke Academy because of the death of her friend, this made her
miss two months of school and she stayed home for the next semester
because of feeling down-spirited (Cody 18). Poems 339, 340, 347 and 355
all explicitly indicate mental pain and mental problems that Dickinson was
having at the time due to her physical state. Her suffering and pain sent her
into a dark place, causing her to write suicidal and depressing poems about
death and funerals. In these poems Dickinson wrote about enjoying the look
of agony, a transition into depression, losing a loved one and death. These
themes are constant throughout each poem and give us into a snapshot into
how Dickinson viewed her life and her eventual death.
The first poem I would like to start out with is 339. This poem is only
two stanzas with four lines each, but close reading it made it clear how much
information there was in the short poem. Dickinson starts out the poem by
saying, I like a look of agony, this is a sadist thing to say because shes
indicating that she likes looking at people who are in pain. She goes on to
write that, Because I know its true -. This can be interpreted as Dickinson
enjoys seeing peoples pain because she knows theyre being truthful. She
appreciates the truth of emotion, but at the same time its disturbing that
she enjoys seeing other people in agony. One interpretation of this poem
could be that Dickinson wanted someone to relate to her in the pain she was
feeling on the inside with possibly losing her eyesight. The next stanza gets
more disturbing when Dickinson writes, The eyes glaze once- and that is
Death - / Impossible to feign, not only does Dickinson like agony, but she
also likes seeing people die because theres nothing more true. Dickinson is
right in her convictions because in a world where people put on a show she
admires the truthfulness of pain and death. However, when Dickinson writes
this shes also wishing pain or even death on another person. John Cody
wrote that Dickinsons obsession with death was more than an interest, he
wrote that this morbidity [cannot] be ascribed completely to popular taste,
(Cody 35). Then poem ends, and the next poem in the sequence is 340.
In poem 340 The death theme continues. Theres a little bit of a
progression from poem 339 to 340 because in 339 she is imagining someone
dying, then in 340 Dickinson gets more mentally agitated and writes about
her own funeral. People argue that Emily Dickinson was not writing about
herself, but we have to take into consideration that she is describing an
experience, we must ask ourselves whether anyone, even a poet, can
portray a feeling state that he has not himself undergoneAnd what could
possibly motivate a person to attempt to express what hes never felt?
(Cody 292) The first line shows that Dickinson is in a weak mental state, I
felt a Funeral, in my Brain, /And Mourners to and fro. She is wishing death
upon herself. The mourners in her brain represent the voices in her head
telling her that she wants to die. The epitome of being in a deep depression
is losing your will to live, which is what was happening to Dickinson in this
poem. Shes is living through her funeral, and even fantasizing about it.
While the mourners were beating their drums, the speakers mind was
going numb- finally, after all the pain she can let her brain go numb and halt
feeling any kind of emotions because its too painful. Dickinson has
essentially lost herself in the confines of her own brain, and at this point its
impossible to escape. Dickinson then hears herself seemingly in her own
coffin while theyre wheeling it down the aisle, And then I heard them lift a
Box / And creak across my Soul. Dickinson writes this poem like she is
genuinely going crazy. Cody said that, There is considerable evidence tat at
least once or twice during her life Miss Dickinson came close to the sort of a
mental crisis which her poetry describes (Cody 35). Due to the mental
agony she was facing, Heavens were a Bell because they were solace from
the mental pain shes experiencing on earth. Death is the ultimate escape
from the world of pain, suffering, and depression that consumed Emily
Dickinson. At the end of the poem she is floating through the abyss in a place
where she doesnt have to do any more thinking, so she will eventually be
unfeeling. Unfeeling is better than being depressed, so the speaker would
rather die than feel anything else. This poem is the ultimate suicidal thought
somebody could have and its terrifying to think that a deep depression could
send Dickinson into this downward spiral.
The next poem Dickinson wrote that struck me as portraying mental
pain was 347. This poem is very explicit in describing mental pain, beginning
with the first line, I dreaded that first Robin, so,. Dickinson is using a Robin
to indicate the beginning of Spring, which shes obviously not looking
forward. Shes dreading the change and doesnt want to see the bees or
even the daffodils. This representation of nature indicates that Dickinson is
depressed because she wants to be inside and not experience what is
happening in the world around her. The changes outside in the springtime
are beautiful, but she cannot bear to experience it because of the internal
agony she is facing. Her mental state may even be borderline suicidal
because she writes about how the daffodils Would pierce me with a
fashion, and how the Pianos in the WoodsHad power to mangle me-. Not
only does she not want to go outside, but shes scared that if she does then
nature will harm her well-being. This is an interesting contrast to some of her
other poems because theyre filled with joy and loving nature. The fear of
Spring and leaving the house could come from the fact she was losing her
sight. Or this fear could come from the fact she has never left her parents
house for more than half a year when she went to boarding school. She then
came back and lived with them for the rest of her life. While this was
common for the time period, Dickinson had chances to marry, but instead
chose to stay with her parents because she couldnt bear to leave her father
(Cody 102). Theres a very stark contrast between the beauty of spring end
the mental pain that Dickinson feels. Dickinson is used to the pain of losing
someone she deeply cared about, but its still a sharp pain in her side that
will never go away until she dies. The person she lost could be a memory
from the friend she lost while she went to Mount Holyoke Academy
(Eberwein). Almost anyone can relate to the pain of losing a loved one, and
the sharp pain that somehow stays with you. Because of this pain it seems
that at the end of the poem Dickinson almost wants to die to avoid what
shes feeling. She even compares herself to the Queen of Calvary, which is
the hill where Jesus was crucified. By writing this Dickinson ends the poem
with a feeling of death whereas she began the poem with a feeling of life.
The depression Dickinson was feeling is equivalent to the pain that the
mourners felt on the day of Jesuss death.
Poem 355 also deals with the concept of suffering and depression, but
in a different way. The pain isnt as sharp as it is in poem 347, its more of a
dull, constant pain that Dickinson feels all the time. She is thinking about her
funeral again and feeling despair. She starts off by writing, It was not Death,
for I stood up, / And all the Dead, lie down- this lines shows us that
Dickinson is not dead, but thinking about death. In the second stanza shes
feeling despair and almost doesnt even have any feeling in her body
because she says, Nor Fire for just my marble feet / Could keep a Chancel,
Cool-. An interpretation of this line could be that shes so cold her feet are
like marble. The marble could even cool a section of a church. This is a
drastic line to write because shes feeling like she doesnt have any blood
pumping through her, like shes alive, but not living. In the third stanza
Dickinson starts to think about her funeral again and says, Se orderly, for
Burial, / Reminded me, of mine, It sounds like she is fantasizing about her
funeral because if shes dead then her mind will no longer be buried by
depression. She will be free of negative thoughts and feelings of despair. She
then goes on in the fourth stanza to say, As if my life were shaven, / And
fitted to a frame, this indicates that Dickinson doesnt believe that her life is
special. This may be one of the sources of her mental pain because she
doesnt think that shes doing anything special with her life. Shes just an
ordinary woman living in an ordinary world. Then we come back to the idea
about Dickinson living with her parents and not branching out in life. Because
of this she could have some regrets about not getting married or having
children. In the last stanza Dickinson starts to imagine what dying is really
like and where people go when they die.
But, most, like Chaos Stopless cool / Without a Chance, or spar-. When
Dickinson says chaos shes talking about a religious place in the universe
that God created for junk. The trash just floats around because theres
nowhere else for it to go and this is what Dickinson thinks death is like. This
twists her into a state of despair because theres nothing she can do to avoid
her fate.
Dickinson was clearly in mental pain while writing these poems
because she uses vivid imagery that indicates her mental state was on the
verge of suicidal. Its difficult to write about death, funerals and despair as
vividly as Dickinson without having any actual experience with depression
and suicidal thoughts firsthand. As readers, Emily Dickinsons poetry can
help us learn how mental pain affects people and what can be done to help
them. While Emily Dickinson seemed to lead a normal life, on the inside she
was suffering, which is a lesson we can all learn from. People may seem okay
on the outside, but on the inside they are struggling and need help. I dont
think Emily Dickinson intended for this lesson to be learned through her
poetry, she really just needed an outlet for her feelings, so she wouldnt act
on her suicidal thoughts.
 Bibliography

Cody, John. After Great Pain; the Inner Life of Emily Dickinson. Cambridge,
MA: Belknap of Harvard UP, 1971. Print.

Eberwein, Jane. "American National Biography Online: Dickinson, Emily."

American National Biography Online: Dickinson, Emily. Oxford
University, Feb. 2000. Web. 16 Oct. 2016.
<http://www.anb.org/articles/16/16-00453.html>.