Dissociative Disorders In Emily Dickinson's Poetry

Superior Essays
Sense and Psychology
Art is a whirlwind of unsolved questions seeking answers, of truths chasing approval, and of the mind’s chaos willing to communicate. It conveys emotions, or emptiness, as it does sanity, or the lack of it. Dissociation Disorder is a psychological behavior in which the subject suffers from an atypical lack of consciousness, or disconnection from reality (Dave, “Dissociative Disorders). Artists with social disorders are able to express their thoughts through different forms of arts, ranging from visual arts to poetry. Emily Dickinson was a poet who demonstrated many signs of Dissociative Disorder through her works. Slightly more unconventional was a man named Sevy Verna who conveyed his art through tiles imprinted on streets
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Several of her relevant topics delved into concepts that are incomprehensible due to their magnitude. “From Blank to Blank,” is a poem which follows a stream of consciousness where she is battling her personalities against each other, and battling them both against reality (Dickinson, 1). When her brain shatters and she is not able to glue the fragments into a single personality, the narrator demonstrates not only her lack of consciousness, but the craving and necessity for it. “Indefinite disclosed— / I shut my eyes— and groped as well / Twas lighter— to be Blind—” (Dickinson, 8-10), depicts how she feels the embrace of a white light, followed by pain until it numbs and stills her. The narrator reaches the mundane pits of reality before she loses herself and ascends into the energy above. Said character explains her struggle to reach serenity and quietude. Throughout the poem, she is manifesting the reality within lack of control over consciousness, the eternity of creativity, and the personality each infinity has within every living being in the universe. Multiple personalities and lack of sense of reality enhance the poems and the definition of art by embracing relativity and a personal mystery simultaneously. The narrator’s second personality feels the energy above is subjective and suitable for all who reach for it. Dissociation, in general or pertaining to personality, is notable in Emily Dickinson through this poem particularly for she struggles to recall who she is, or if she even is. She struggles to recall what is to be, just as she struggles to be ordinary since it is too simple for her, therefore she creates her own art through her abstract and chaotic

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