I Am Eve: Emily Dickinson's Identification with Eve in the Genesis Narrative

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Recommended: Symbolism in Emily Dickinson's poems

Nudity, power, beauty, paradise, knowledge, authority, rebellion, anger, punishment,

and injustice: these are all themes that Emily Dickinson.s poetry grapples with and repeatedly

explores. They are also themes that she found in the Genesis narrative of Adam and Eve in

her King James Version of the Bible.

As a central influence in Dickinson.s Nineteenth Century, Puritan, New England

society, the Bible was a primary text at both Amherst Academy and Mount Holyoke, where

Dickinson attended (Sewell 362). At home, Dickinson.s father read a chapter a day to his

family (Sewell 694), and at age 14, he gave her a copy of the King James text (Seelbinder 18).

Everyone in her life encouraged Emily Dickinson to study the Bible, hoping it would bring her

close to God and would convince her to join the church. In Dickinson.s hands, however, the

Bible had the opposite effect.

At age sixteen, Emily Dickinson wrote a letter to her friend Abiah Root, which

contained the following passage:

I have lately come to the conclusion that I am Eve, alias Mrs. Adam. You

know there is no account of her death in the Bible, and why am not I Eve? If

you find any statements which you think likely to prove the truth of the case, I

wish you would send them to me without delay. (L9)

Why would Emily Dickinson choose to call herself Eve, the woman responsible for original sin

and the fall of humankind? Dickinson.s intimate knowledge of the Bible did lead her to

identify with Eve. Through this identification, Emily Dickinson found a way to make the

Bible work for her: it pushed her further away from God and from the beliefs of the Puritan

church. Dickinson.s poetry illustrates her identification with Eve and how this identif...

... middle of paper ...

...ly Dickinson Encyclopedia. Ed. Jane Donahue

Eberwein. Westport, Conn: Greenwood, 1998. 159.

Holy Bible: King James Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1984.

Oberhaus, Dorothy Huff. ..Engine against th. Almightie.: Emily Dickinson and Prayer..

ESQ 32:3 (1986): 153-72.

Ostriker, Alicia Susken. Feminist Revision and the Bible. Cambridge, Mass: Blackwell, 1993.

Schneidau, Herbert. .The Antinomian Strain: The Bible and American Poetry.. The Bible and

American Arts and Letters. Ed. Giles Gunn. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983. 11-32.

Seelbinder, Emily. .The Bible.. An Emily Dickinson Encyclopedia. Ed. Jane Donahue

Eberwein. Westport, Conn: Greenwood, 1998. 17-19.

Sewall, Richard. The Life of Emily Dickinson. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1994.

Thomas, Owen. .Father and Daughter: Edward and Emily Dickinson.. American Literature

40:4 (1969): 510-23.

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