Emily Dickinson's The Soul Selects Her Own Society

Emily Dickinson’s poetry reflects a sense of death and inclusiveness that stemmed from her own life. Dickinson lived a life of solitude and only accepted a few chosen people to visit her or to correspond with. Unlike those of her time period, she did not find pleasure in entertaining visitors nor did she conform to religious or societal expectations of the society she was living in. Her works of poetry correspond with her life of seclusion and only having a small social group. It has been rumored that her reclusiveness and poetry lament of an unreciprocated love that may have been related to her relationships with Reverend Charles Wadsworth or Otis P. Lord. Dickinson’s poetry often seems to ponder immortality, which may have been something that she never came to terms. According to the Academy of American Poets (www.poets.org), Emily Dickinson’s poetry …show more content…
This poem in particular focuses more on exclusion , but also has a subtle theme or reference to death. The poem mirrors Dickinson’s reclusiveness at this stage in her life. The “soul selects her own society” is a metaphor representing how a person selects a lover or a friend then welcomes no one else. This person or soul accepts no one else into their inner circle no matter how great their status, “an emperor kneeling”,or persistence. There is no compromising once the circle is closed. The “stone” represents finality, cold and inflexible. A tombstone is a final symbol in death and a reminder that death is permanent; there is no opening of the door. Once the stone is place, the conscience has closed itself off and will not allow any other to join or enter its sanctuary of seclusion.“Then-shuts the door-To her divine majority-Present no more”,Poem 303. Dickinson's later life seemed to appear shut off from many people to whom she shared a close intellectual relationship with and possibly unrequited