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Emily DickinsonA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
In her era of cultural intolerance of alcohol and the notion that giving in to strong liquor signaled moral weakness and promised the collapsing superstructure of civilization itself, Dickinson uses alcohol and inebriation to symbolize not moral degradation but rather the “push” (line 4) of life’s too infrequent joys, as tonic as they are ephemeral.
Far from condemning such intoxicating moments, Dickinson celebrates them and dismisses those who might look on such happiness as somehow inappropriate, who go tsk-tsk her for giving in to joy. She mocks herself for her careless behavior, refusing to take seriously the risks of joy. After all, the only issue with alcohol comes from constant inebriation, or a fantasy world of perpetual bliss. In using the symbol of alcohol to suggest the tender delights life offers, Dickinson cautions not to get caught up in what she sees as the real danger: staying drunk, that is, expecting joy to last.
To suggest the formidable dimensions of life’s sorrows, Dickinson uses the Himalayan Mountains in the distant Asian subcontinent. Why? There were no shortages of local mountain ranges she could have used—the Rockies, the Appalachians, for instance, had both been mapped by cartographers, and the Berkshires were literally in her Amherst backyard.
By Emily Dickinson
A Bird, came down the Walk
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A Clock stopped—
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A narrow Fellow in the Grass (1096)
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Because I Could Not Stop for Death
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"Faith" is a fine invention
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Fame Is a Fickle Food (1702)
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Hope is a strange invention
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"Hope" Is the Thing with Feathers
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I Felt a Cleaving in my Mind
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I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain
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If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking
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If I should die
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If you were coming in the fall
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I heard a Fly buzz — when I died
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I'm Nobody! Who Are You?
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Much Madness is divinest Sense—
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Success Is Counted Sweetest
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Tell all the truth but tell it slant
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The Only News I Know
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There is no Frigate like a Book
Emily Dickinson