I read through all of the Emily Dickinson sonnets that were featured in this second packet. While this is not my favorite one, her work never fails to impress. The first thing that I noticed about this particular piece was that there were many odd words that had been capitalized. Whether or not this was done purposefully I am not sure. But, part of me believes that this serves as a purpose for this sonnet.
On a whim I took all of the capitalized words in this piece and placed them in order to see if it made any sense.
I came up with the following.
The Heart Banks
It Sea Bass
And Blue Monotony
Till Hurricane
And Area
The Heart
That Calm
Wall Of Gauze
An Push
A Questioning
I was told by one of my class mates that they believed that Emily Dickinson wrote a piece that could be sung to the rhythm of 'Amazing Grace.' I find this to be true when it comes to the capitalized words of this sonnet. Perhaps this could be another way of adding emphasis to these words, other than capitalizing them where they do not need to be capitalized?
As far as the whole sonnet goes there were a few lines that seemed to stand out to me. The first line would be a good example. Dickinson writes, "The Heart has narrow Banks It measures like the Sea" When I think of an actual human heart I always envision the four chambers that it has. However, the way that Dickinson has described it here, I can't help but envision a red sea. Blood from our hearts pouring into this vast area to spread to the world. Perhaps this could be a biblical reference? I had read another one of Dickinson's works and that also seemed to reference a sort of religious undertone.
The next line that caught my attention was "The Heart convulsive learns That Calm is but a Wall..."
The reason that I seemed to pay special attention to this part was because of the imagery that it created for me. From the beginning I felt as if I had been placed on a sandy beach. This line seemed to create a dark cloudy sky above, and hint to a danger ahead. 'That Calm is but a Wall..' This reminds me of 'the eye of the storm.' That moment when everything is calm but you know that danger is approaching and will hit harder and cause more destruction than before.
The final words of this piece state "An instant's Push demolishes A Questioning dissolves" To me this is saying that at any given time everything could be taken from you. Your life is not decided by you...but it is decided for you. You have already a predetermined destiny. Which seems to be a very bleak, yet enlightening sort of view of the world to me. However, asking questions allows for this destruction to lose control in its wake and 'dissolve' the hardships that you seem to be facing. It's almost like interrupting a wave.
If you pretend that you are in a bathtub...the ripples are spreading outward from the faucet because of the flowing water. You shut the water off because the tub is almost full. But still the ripples continue to spread. Until they hit the sides of the tub, Then you notice that they seem to bounce backward from where they came. What does this have to do with anything?
If you think of it in a way that these ripples are waves that are created by the push (the destruction) and the sides of the tub are the dissolve (the questions) You can see that the questions force the destruction to move in another direction completely, and even lose some of its momentum.
I know the whole 'bathtub' thing was kind of a strange analogy but it was the first thing that came to mind other than Grandmother Willow in the Disney version of Pocahontas.
I've grown fond of Emily Dickinson as a writer. I hope that I can come across more of her work and perhaps draw some inspiration from her pieces. It seems like she knows what she's doing.
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