Emily Dickinson Identity

Individual’s often associate their acceptance in society to their personal sense of identity. It is their identity which represents for who they are, and as it is in human nature to desire affiliation it can be considered that a person’s identity can shift due to belonging. The aspect is clearly demonstrated in Emily Dickinson’s poems ‘This is my letter to the World’ and ‘I gave myself to Him’, as well as the novel ‘The Bell Jar’(1963) written by Sylvia Plath. It is explored in these texts the idea of a person’s identity changing due to the as a consequence of wanting to belong to their environment and current times. ‘This is my letter to the World’ is a personal statement written by Emily Dickinson relating to her disconnect to society,

‘The Bell Jar’ discusses the troubles of Esther as she progresses in life, especially her struggle to remain true to her identity while within New York City. It is clear that Greenwood experiences a minor crisis and questions her own being when finding it hard to relate fully to the personalities of bold friend Doreen or her more timid and polite friend Betsy, or even with the other girls she stays with during her internship. ‘I felt very still and empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullaballo.’ Sylvia Plath uses this simile to describe Esther’s awareness of her own loss of identity amidst the glamorous life in New York, unable to share the excitement of the people at parties and other various events. Her changing identity is further implied during a spontaneous double date she attends with Doreen: ‘I felt myself melting into the shadows like the negative of a person I’ve never seen before in my life.’ The use of this simile illustrates how her identity is seemingly degraded into darkness, and Esther becomes a person who she can hardly recognise herself. The change in this is caused by both aspects of belonging; the disconnect and alienation Esther experiences in New York and because of the feelings of attachment that she still holds to her home

The poem is a constant battle between the differences of the ideal and the real, describing the personas ‘solemn contract’ with an unnamed man. Emily Dickinson writes of how the persona is afraid of her true identity being revealed, and at times wants to create a more exotic and excitable identity in order to please ‘Him’. The low modality in ‘Wealth might disappoint’ highlights her uncertainty of the matter, unsure whether herself may be deemed unworthy for the man who has claimed her. The uneasiness connects to the persona’s own identity as she begins to ask herself if it really who she is. The lines ‘The Daily Own - of Love/Depreciate the Vision’ feature enjambment as they run over two stanzas; the enjambment exhibits the breaking of thought of the persona and hence symbolises the rupture and loss of her identity. As the poem progresses, Dickinson adds ambiguity suggesting both the developing or true nature of the person’s identity: ‘in the Isles of Spice/The subtle Cargoes - lie -’. The ambiguity in the word ‘lie’ shows the persona has the illusion of a desirable identity, or it proposes that her identity has shaped into something as alluring as her belonging to ‘the Isles of Spice.’ As a final result of the poem, it can be assumed that the narrator of Dickinson’s ‘I gave myself to Him’ has reached a point where she feels a mutual sense of approval