The Soul Selects Her Own Society By Emily Dickinson

Born in Massachusetts during the early 19th century, Emily Dickinson came from a well-educated upper-middleclass family. Although her family was well known for being sociable and engaging in community activity, Dickinson is portrayed as an introvert. Although shy, Dickinson greatly expressed her feelings on paper and her writing style is extremely unique. After reading multiple pieces by Dickinson I began to notice a similar pattern. She never titled any of her poems so the first line of each poem is now thought to be a title, she liked to use dashes to break up major thoughts for a dramatic pause, she uses slant rhyme, personification, and alliteration throughout all of her poetry, and lastly, she uses a lot of capitalization for the emphasis of certain words. Throughout her poetry, not only did Dickinson create a society, but also further more found nature. Although she had controversial doubts about death, she was very optimistic about American culture during the Romantic era. First, In Emily Dickinson’s poem “The Soul selects her own Society,” she exemplifies that each person chooses their own friends or lovers and shut himself or herself out from the rest of the world. Their society only includes that person and their selected friends. In the first stanza Dickinson states:

The soul Dickinson describes in her work is made to symbolize any person. However from reading the poem, the soul might quite possibly represent Dickinson herself. Scholar Barton Levi St. Armand states that “ Dickinson was a soul who carefully selected her own society from her culture, just as from all other souls she “elected” only one.” (St. Armand) St. Armand’s research supports the idea that Dickinson made the decision to isolate herself from the outside world. Therefore the influence of others would not have a major effect in her