Vesuvius At Home The Power Of Emily Dickinson

An Exploration of Emotions Women in the 19th century were expected to be selfless and completely devote themselves to their husband and family. These women, whose sole purpose was to flatter, soothe and comfort the males of the population, are called, "The Angel in the House". "The Angel in the House" is the epitome of the "ideal" woman of society. However, Emily Dickinson, an American poet, chose not to conform to society. Dickinson was born into a prominent family in Amherst, Massachusetts, where she lived most of her life as an introvert writing thousands of poems in her bedroom. In Adrienne Rich's essay, "Vesuvius at Home: The Power of Emily Dickinson," she describes Emily Dickinson as “not only a poet but a woman who explored her own mind.” Her poems are acts of exploration into extreme emotional territories that could have been considered challenging, …show more content…
She creates a metaphor of a funeral in her brain in order to describe what is going on in her head. In the beginning of the poem, Dickinson describes what’s happening in her brain, “Mourners to and fro / Kept treading–treading–till it seemed / That Sense was breaking through– (lines 3-4). These lines highlight Dickinson’s emotions because the “walking” in her brain causes her "sense" to “break through” and make her mind and sense of thought feel “numb.” These repetitive sounds and motions that occur throughout the poem portray Dickinson as being trapped inside her own mind. As if she was not psychologically capable of writing any more, Dickinson ends the poem abruptly stating, "And Finished knowing - then -" (20). Adrienne Rich explains that in poems like “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,” Dickinson had courage to explore a subject that other poets did not because they feared appearing unstable to other