Untying the Hound: A Psychoanalytic Analysis of “What shall I do – it whimpers so” Emily Dickinson’s “What shall I do – it whimpers so”, Franklin number 237, analyzes the codependent nature of some romantic relationships and dramatizes the tension that arises when there is a disparity in the devotion that two people have for one another in those relationships. The speaker compares the feelings she has for her beloved to those of a subservient dog for his master; she acknowledges that the only time she can be free and content is when she is with her lover. A psychoanalytic reading of the work reveals the speaker’s fear of abandonment and unstable sense of self. The poem is constructed in iambic tetrameter and it’s rhyme scheme reads: ABBA …show more content…
It desires only to be free of its restraints and rejoin its master. In the poem’s opening line, Dickinson invokes a pleading, dire tone as she implores, “What shall I do” (1). According to the Brigham Young University’s Emily Dickinson Lexicon, “whimpering” refers to a sense of yearning and desire (Lexicon). Due to a fear of abandonment, the speaker possesses a “Hound within the Heart” that is focused solely on her lover (2). Dickinson utilizes the term “Hound” as a symbol for yearning and desire, thus reinforcing the previous line (Lexicon). The “Heart”, according to the database is the primary seat or feeling (Lexicon). The seat of feeling, for the speaker, is preoccupied with longing for the companionship of another person, rather than achieving self-actualization. This fascination continues “all day and night”, seeking release, but finding none. In the stanza’s final line, the speaker inquires, “And yet – it will not go”, indicating once again that she would like to join her lover. This would provide the speaker with a greater sense of security and bolster her sense of self, if it were to …show more content…
The speaker continues to take on the role of beggar as she imagines the Hound “sometimes – at your side to run”, but only “When you were willing” (11-12). Again, she is implying that the poem’s subject holds the power. The speaker does not want to irritate and exert her own sense of empowerment, so will only act when or if the subject is willing. The final lines bring the poem to a close by asking, “May it come – Tell Carlo – He’ll tell me!” (13-14). Carlo was the name of Emily Dickinson’s Newfoundland dog, which lived from 1850 to 1865 and was a gift from her father. The moniker Dickinson bestowed upon the dog was an allusion to St John River’s dog in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. (Lexicon). The speaker is suggesting that, perhaps, her dog might serve as an emissary between the she and the subject of the poem. This is an abrupt change in tone and may be a light-hearted acknowledgment of the juvenile outlook that the speaker has toward her beloved. Since she has yet to fully develop a stable sense of self, this contributes to the speaker’s underlying fear of
Upon first look, Billy Collins “Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes” seems to be a wild fantasy for Emily Dickinson that he is entertaining. Upon closer examination, however, the poem reveals his subconscious desire to have sex with his mother and his frustration about his inability to do so, resulting in the displacement of his sexual desires onto Dickinson.
This heavy word choice made by Harper continues throughout the following stanzas as well, and this evokes a sympathetic feeling from the audience. At this point, it has not been revealed that the person with the "burden'd heart" is a mother, but it still conveys the anguish that the woman is feeling. The woman is also described as having a "bowed and feeble head," and this conveys the helplessness that the woman is feeling in the scene (stanza 2, line 6). The author continues with this tone when the son is introduced as well. He is described as having a "trembling form" that the mother is trying to hide behind herself (stanza 4, line 16). At this point in the poem, it is made much clearer that the mother and son are slaves because the narrator says that "he is not hers," meaning that even though she gave birth to the boy, he was owned by the slave owners (stanza 5, line 17). Therefore, her own son could never truly belong to her. Slavery has created this situation, and the woman was so desperate to get out that she was willing to run away with her son in order for him to have a better love. When they were caught and the threat that he would be taken from her became real, she became devastated and desperate. However,
19th century poet, Emily Dickinson was seen as a scandal in that she had chosen to live in a different manner than others of her time – socially reclusive, spending her years in solitude, she never got married, nor had any children, and as so, her voice was unheard. In justification of her societal seclusion, poem 435 is a defense on her behalf for the majority that see her as a misconduct. Dickinson’s view of madness and sense serve as a metaphor for the differentiating line between sense and sanity.
Although there are numerous approaches employed in understanding literature, the psychoanalytic interpretation most significantly attempts to utilize the symbolic mysteries of a work. In exclusive contrast to the formal approach, which focuses entirely on the wording, the fascinating aspect of the psychoanalytic investigation is that it searches for a purpose beyond that which is strictly in the text. By insinuating the existence of innate and hidden motives, it allows for a broad range of abstract and creative possibilities. When applied to Perrault's, "Little Red Riding Hood," it appropriately suggests evidence toward underlying sexual motivations and tensions. Additionally, this analysis unfolds a constant interplay between forces of the human psyche.
This poem speaks to the fear of slowly losing one’s self and mind because just like the persona, they are helpless to stop it, just like the “Balls—upon a Floor” (8). The speaker appears afraid of losing himself or herself completely, but cannot stop the process once the “balls” start to roll. Runzo wrote, “Dickinson repudiates these ‘normalizing’ cultural definitions of her life; through her invocations of law and convention, Dickinson disconnects herself from cultural conceptions of “woman” in Victorian America” (Runzo 5). Runzo noted in her article, Dickinson has a disconnection from the culturally defined ideas of being a woman, and in this poem, the speaker certainly tries to be a part of the society that tries to define them, but also suffers from the same disconnection as Runzo describes about Emily Dickinson. The lines, “The thought behind, I strove to join / Unto the thought before--/ But Sequence raveled out of Sound” suggests that the speaker, at least, has tried to be a part of the society around them (5-7). The poem also shows that the performance of being someone the speaker is not has taken a toll on the speaker such as in the choice of the words of “raveled out” and the break after the word, “before,” as if to show the speaker’s attempt at performing is halted, and then the “But” shows her failure in her performance. Not only does Dickinson recognize the dangers of such performance, she uses her poem to demonstrate that the performance itself of being a woman does not guarantee the acceptance of being a “woman” in Victorian America. Dickinson’s “I FELT a Cleaving in my Mind” presents readers with the conception of the cost of performing in our society and the losing of one’s self and mind through this performance. While this poem was written over a hundred years ago, this poem offers a perspective on how the performance of one’s
Looking at these texts through a homoerotic lens simply allows for the possibility of a more nuanced reading of Dickinson’s work. Ultimately, Emily Dickinson’s tendencies to contradict literary convention, resist binaries of gender and sexuality, and call attention to societal conventions are better understood through a queer lens—a lens which inherently aims to understand and “disarrange normative systems of behavior and identity” (Juhasz 24). This analysis will use such a lens to consider multiple versions of four poems—“I hide myself within my flower,” “Her breast is fit for pearls,” “He showed me hights I never saw,” and “Going to Him! Happy letter!”—and demonstrate Dickinson’s capacity to tackle societal norms through subtle changes in diction and syntax, beginning with how the Amherst poet queered poetic
Emily Dickinson is known to be a poet of great renown. Even after many decades, her work continues to be a major influence in English literature. Her poems are known for their breaking of the standard poetic rules and dives deep into self-conscious of the human mind and society’s views of right and wrong. In particular is poem 754. Much of Emily Dickson’s poem, “My Life Stood – A Loaded”, places a large of amount of emphasizes in violence and narrates her time with her ‘Owner’. The speaker in this poem is subjected to the imposed gender dynamics of 19th century and tries to find an alternative around this. The speaker of the poem experiences powerful emotions and acts on them during the duration of the poem.
Immeasurable passion surges through her body, saturating her sensations, until they steadily seep out, exposing her raw and natural desires. Words of a woman can only be conveyed by she who has felt the intense infatuation and deep withholding of desire to cherish a person as her lover. Emily Dickinson achieved this through the expression of her words as she captivated and enraptured her audience through brilliant metaphors in her poem “Wild Nights—Wild Nights!” Her poem elucidates her longing to sexually sanctify her adoration with someone she is deprived of.
It is clear that Dickinson could not have written to please publishers, who were not ready to risk her striking style and original metaphors. She had the right to educate the public, as Poe and Whitman eventually did, but she never had the invitation. Had she published during her lifetime, public criticism might have driven her into deeper solitude and even silence. The twentieth century has lifted her without a doubt to the first rank among poets.
I decided to analyze Act II, Scene II in MacBeth using Psychoanalysis. I have previously examined the passage using Marxism and Queer Theory, so I thought it might be beneficial to scrutinize the scene from yet another angle. However, I will also discuss another scenes, as well, in order to fully, yet briefly, demonstrate MacBeth’s two opposing psychological constructions.
Emily Dickinson’s poem, “When I Gave Myself to Him” demonstrates and examines the commonalities of a women’s role in the 19th century and deliberately moves against the standard. Her use of figurative language, analogies, and the use of dashes represent an intense emotion between her feelings concerning the affiliate desires of society: to marry and have children. Emily uses the conventional use of poetic form by adding six to eight syllables in her quatrain that adds rhyme and musical quality to her poem to treat the unconventional poetic subject of the women’s gender role. This poem is not an ordinary love poem though isolation in unity that deals with the complications and ideas of belonging to someone.
The dog quotes other characters whose presence is questioned by the woman. The referred-to characters are her lover, family members, and enemy. The poem is essentially a dialogue between the woman and her dog. She is astounded to sense that someone is “digging” on her grave, and is disappointed every time she provides an anxious guess. The woman’s first guess is her lover, and asks if he is planting a rut on her grave.
Growing up we make connections with certain people we encounter. These connections range from parents, relatives, or someone we highly admire, and whether we realize it or not these people impact our lives and how we view the world. In William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily”, Emily, the main character would be a great example for Freud’s psychoanalytic theory; the theory refers to the definition of personality organization and the dynamics of personality development that guide the psychoanalytic. One of the basic tenets of psychoanalytic is human attitude, mannerism, experience, and thought which is largely influenced by irrational drives. Emily was in love with her father, she used her sweetheart as her father replacement, and she wanted to keep her sweethearts body.
At times Emily Dickinson writes about using humor and at times pathos as she writes about her subjects. Having in mind that Emily was full of humor, one can easily distinguish between the tones behind her words. For this paper “I heard a Fly buzz when I died-”, “My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun -” and “Because I could not stop for Death -” are some of the poems I selected to assess the consistency of style and theme in Emily Dickinson’s poetry. All the selected three poems are lyrics and clear short poems that have only a single speaker who expresses feelings and thoughts. Compared to most lyrical poetry, Emily Dickinson’s speaker in her poems is repeatedly identified in the first person as “I.”
Personality is an individual’s characteristic pattern of feeling, thinking and acting. Psychodynamic theories of personality view human behavior as a dynamic interaction between the conscious mind and unconscious mind, including associated motives and conflicts (Myers & Dewall, pg# 572, 2015). These theories focus on the unconscious and the importance of childhood experiences. Psychodynamic theories are descended from Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis, which is his ideology of personality and the associated treatment techniques. Psychoanalysis attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts. This theory also includes the techniques used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions. He proposed that childhood sexuality and unconscious motivations influence personality. Freud’s historically significant psychoanalytic theory became part of the human cultural legacy.