Ideas of Gender and Domesticity in Leaves of Grass and Selected Emily Dickinson Poems
- 1187 Words
- 5 Pages
- 4 Works Cited
Though both Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson were highly self-reliant and individualistic, he found importance in the “frontiers” and believed the soul was only attainable through a physical connection with nature, whereas she chose to isolate and seclude herself from her community in order to focus solely on her writing. In this analysis, I will look at excerpts from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and Emily Dickinson’s poems, “I’m ‘wife’— I’ve finished that”, “What mystery pervades a well!” and “I’ll tell you how the sun rose”, to contrast their representations of self-realization and domesticity and the implications of this domesticity on their gender.
The first topic I will discuss and compare is their different attitudes toward “domesticity”. This is, of course, the opposite of everything Walt Whitman believed in. As I aforementioned, he held to the belief that the only way to have a pure soul and true connections with the Earth was to venture out into it. Physical, rather than emotional, connections with nature were absolutely necessary to life and to full self-realization (Comment, 62). Section 33 of Leaves of Grass begins with his cataloging all the wonders of nature he has seen, “Where the panther walks to and fro… where the otter is feeding on fish… where the black bear is searching for roots or honey…
Over the growing sugar, over the yellow-flower'd cotton plant… Over the western persimmon, over the long-leav'd corn…” (L, 33), and is followed later on by “no guard can shut me off, no law prevent me”. Whitman is discussing how free and alive he is in the American frontier, and attests that that is the only true way to be free, to find ...
... middle of paper ...
... and an end to his capacity to write. Domesticity for her—the only circumstances in which she would be able to.
Works Cited
Comment, Kristin M. "'Wasn't She A Lesbian?' Teaching Homoerotic Themes In Dickinson And Whitman." English Journal 4 (2009): 61. General OneFile. Web. 9 May 2014.
Hughes, Gertrude Reif. "Subverting The Cult Of Domesticity: Emily Dickinson's Critique Of Women's Work." Legacy: A Journal Of American Women Writers 3.1 (1986): 17-28. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 9 May 2014.
Farland, Maria. "Decomposing City: Walt Whitman's New York And The Science Of Life And Death." Elh 4 (2007): 799. Project MUSE. Web. 9 May 2014.
Wrobel, Arthur. "Whitman And The Phrenologists: The Divine Body And The Sensuous Soul." PMLA: Publications Of The Modern Language Association Of America 89.1 (1974): 17-23. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 9 May 2014.
The Woes of an Aging Poet
1381 Words | 6 Pages"Eliot's The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock." Explicator 62.4 (2004): 221-223. Humanities Source. Web. 15 May 2014.
The Age Old Struggle
693 Words | 3 PagesWeb. 05 Feb. 2014. Lanser, Susan S. "Feminist Criticism, "The Yellow Wallpaper," and the Politics of Color in America." JSTOR. Feminist Studies, Inc., n.d.
An Early Feminist: An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex
950 Words | 4 PagesDevereaux, Johanna “Affecting the Shade”: Attribution, Authorship, and Anonymity in An Essay in Defence of the Female Se,Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature(Vol 27) Number 1, Spring 2008, pp. 17-37 http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/tulsa_studies_in_womens_literature/summary/v027/27.1.devereaux. html Jones, Vivien Women in the eighteenth century: constructions of femininity, Routledge, 1990
The Search for Language in The Awakening
2442 Words | 10 PagesLeslies W. Rabine, in her essay “No Lost Paradise: Social Gender and Symbolic Gender in the Writings of Maxine Hong Kingston,” says that “traditional male narratives” are based “on a linear and circular quest to return to a lost paradise” (Rabine 90), however, female narratives do not have this lost paradise. The world in which Edna lives traps her so that the paradise she is seeking cannot exist. The paradise Edna is looking for is nothing more than a situation in which she can be truly happy. The fundamentally phallocentric... ... middle of paper ... ...Awakening.
Women in Achebe's Things Fall Apart
1161 Words | 5 PagesNew York, NY: Anchor Books. Chun, J. (1990). The role of women in Things Fall Apart. Retrieved from http://www.postcolonialweb.org/nigeria/women.html Hiatt, K. P. (2006).
Girl Power: The Importance of Female Relationships in Jane Eyre
765 Words | 4 PagesLiterary Reference Center. Web. 27 Nov. 2013. Rich, Adrienne. “Jane Eyre: The Temptations of a Motherless Woman.” Jane Eyre (An Authoritative Text, Contexts, and Criticisms).
Feminism Throughout History
1714 Words | 7 PagesFaludi, Susan. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women. New York: Broadway Books, 2006. Print. Kelly, Joan Women, History & Theory The Essays of Joan Kelly.
The Failure Of Feminism By Phyllis Chesler
728 Words | 3 PagesIn the essay “The Failure of Feminism,” by Phyllis Chesler, that was first published by The Chronical of Higher Education on February 24, 2006. The author emphasizes how “feminism may not be existent anymore (Chesler, 2006).” Chesler describes the word feminism itself, and how others may interpret the word. “The Failure of Feminism shows how feminism has evolved over time. The word feminism can be is understood. The first thing that comes to mind when thinking of the word feminism is females.
What is Modernism?
1179 Words | 5 PagesJSTOR. Web. 12 March 2014. Walls, Elizabeth MacLeod. “‘A Little Afraid of the Women of Today’: The Victorian New Woman and the Rhetoric of British Modernism.” Rhetoric Review 21.3 (2002): 229-246.
Mary Freeman's The Revolt of Mother and the Domestic Feminist
1385 Words | 6 PagesCutter, Martha J. "Frontiers of Language: Engendering Discourse in "The Revolt of 'Mother""American Literature 63.2 (1991): 279-91. Jstor. Web. 29 Mar.
More about Ideas of Gender and Domesticity in Leaves of Grass and Selected Emily Dickinson Poems
The Woes of an Aging Poet
1381 Words | 6 PagesThe Age Old Struggle
693 Words | 3 PagesAn Early Feminist: An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex
950 Words | 4 PagesThe Search for Language in The Awakening
2442 Words | 10 PagesWomen in Achebe's Things Fall Apart
1161 Words | 5 PagesGirl Power: The Importance of Female Relationships in Jane Eyre
765 Words | 4 PagesFeminism Throughout History
1714 Words | 7 PagesThe Failure Of Feminism By Phyllis Chesler
728 Words | 3 PagesWhat is Modernism?
1179 Words | 5 PagesMary Freeman's The Revolt of Mother and the Domestic Feminist
1385 Words | 6 Pages