Lasmeida Metriana Nababan : Emily Dickinson’s Concept Of God In Some Of Her Poems, 2010.
Dickinson’s individuality and creatifity in the field of religion in her poem “ Some keep the sabbath going to church”. In the first stanza I thing she wants to contrast
people activities to her activity, when people go the church to pray and to do the ceremonial but she is better to stay at home in the silence of the beauty of the nature
only with the sound of nature. In the second stanza I thing it is almost the same of the first stanza. She also
wants to contrast the activities related to the ceremonial in the sabbath. When people go to the church with the luxurious but for her, it is enough just close to the nature
with simple appearrance. When the other sings in the church, she chooses to hear the sounds of nature.
In the third Stanza, she contrast the voice of God by the preacher and by the sound of nature.
This delightful work explains how instead of attending a Sunday service, Dickinson keeps holy the Sabbath by remaining at home. She explain her Sunday by saying, “
God preaches, - a noted clergyman,- and the sermon is never long ; so instead of getting to heaven at last. I’m going all along”. With simple language , Dickinson
explains that the word of God does not to be preached in a chapel, but can be found at any walk of life. God is portrayed as a personal and loving being, contradictory to
the God of the fire and brimstone that was often preached during the nineteenth century. She also reveals an inner belief of hers that, contrary to what was believed in
her day, going to Heaven is not an arduous task of trying.
4.7 The concept That God is Possesive
Lasmeida Metriana Nababan : Emily Dickinson’s Concept Of God In Some Of Her Poems, 2010.
4.7.1 A Reflection of Emily Dickinson’s Concept About That God is Possesive In He fumbles at your spirit
He fumbles at your spirit As players at the keys
Before they drop full music on; He stuns you by degrees,
Prepares your brittle substance For the ethereal blow,
By fainter hammers, further heard, Then nearer, then so slow
Your breath has time to straighten, Your brain to bubble cool,--
Deals one imperial thunderbolt That scalps your naked soul.
When winds take Forests in their Paws-- The Universe is still.
In the first stanza, I thing the phrase He fumbles with the keys, which represent the spirit or soul, and stuns by degrees. Dickinson uses a musicians
playing to describe Gods conversion technique. The initial approach is tentative In the second stanza, The words describing the conversion become
increasingly more violent after the drop stuns you: blow, imperial thunderbolt, scalps your naked soul. The conversion culminates in violence of
cosmic proportions; winds God take forests in their Paws. Gods blows are
Lasmeida Metriana Nababan : Emily Dickinson’s Concept Of God In Some Of Her Poems, 2010.
spiritual; therefore, the blow of the piano hammers is ethereal. The meaning of ethereal being used here is heavenly or celestial. Because of Gods might and status,
the thunderbolt is imperial. In the third stanza, . The savagery of God is insisted upon not only because
he scalps, which is horrifying enough, but also because he scalps a defenseless victim naked soul. Dickinson uses paw, rather than hand, as the final expression of
Gods ferocity. Think of who or what has paws. This is a poem of possession. The question is, possession by whom or what? I
have classified this under the heading of God and suggest that Dickinson is describing the experience of religious conversion. However, another possibility is
possession by poetic fervor. Dickinson may be describing the poets relationship to her own poetic power or the compulsion to write. The fact that this force is male is no
argument against this interpretation; male poets traditionally refer to their muse or poetic inspirationfervor as the opposite sex or female. No matter how you interpret
the unnamed He, the way that the images function and Dickinsons attitude toward the possession are essentially the same.
4.8 The concept That God is suffer maker 4.8.1 A Reflection of Emily Dickinson’s Concept About That That God is
suffer maker In The heart asks pleasure first
The heart asks pleasure first, And then, excuse from pain;
And then, those little anodynes That deaden suffering,
Lasmeida Metriana Nababan : Emily Dickinson’s Concept Of God In Some Of Her Poems, 2010.
And then, to go to sleep; And then, if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor, The liberty to die.
I think in this poem, at the first stanza, she try to descride that the requests of the heart are arranged in a hierarchy or order of importance; the first request is for pleasure, but
the remaining requests ask for relief from pain. The pain increases as the poem goes on; this is the reason that the remedies to relieve the pain become increasingly
extreme, with the final request being for death. That the heart asks indicates its lower or dependent status; another has the power to
grant the request. Listing pleasure as the first request might suggest that it is the most important one. But does the rest of the poem support this assumption? The number of
lines devoted to suffering overwhelm the one line devoted to pleasure. Similarly, the degree of suffering implied by the increasingly desperate requests for relief from pain
minimizes the importance of pleasure. The last line of stanza one, with its request to deaden suffering, anticipates or foreshadows the final request for literal death. A
medicine is anything that relieves or lessens pain. It is God who has the power to grant relief from pain. The implication is that He has
the power to inflict it also. Dickinson judging God guilty of inflicting pain upon humanity. She emphasizing the pain and Gods culpability.
In the second stanza, I think The final irony is the phrasing of the request to die--the liberty to die. Liberty has powerful connotations for Americans, all favorable. It
Lasmeida Metriana Nababan : Emily Dickinson’s Concept Of God In Some Of Her Poems, 2010.
opens up vistas of freedom; however, in this poem liberty is the freedom to die to escape pain. By using liberty, is Dickinson suggesting that this is a human right?
God has the power to allow liberty or to deny it. That God may deny this liberty and that the heart must request liberty further portray God as an oppressor.
This implication is made explicit with her calling God Inquisitor. Historically, the Inquisition was established by the Roman Catholic Church in the thirteenth century to
search out and punish heretics. It came to be associated, particularly in Protestant countries, as a cruel, unjust institution which tortured innocent victims and even
burned them at the stake. In using the term Inquisitor, is Dickinson judging God guilty of inflicting pain upon humanity? Listing the requests for relief And
then...And then...And then...And then has a cumulative effect, she emphasizing the pain and Gods culpability. The use of the word will for God makes him totally
responsible for humanitys continuing to suffer because He chooses to withhold death.
4.9 The concept That God is Hypocrite 4.9.1 A Reflection of Emily Dickinson’s Concept About God is Hypocrite
In
Tis One by One — the Father counts — 545
Tis One by One — the Father counts — And then a Tract between
Set Cypherless — to teach the Eye The Value of its Ten —
Until the peevish Student Acquire the Quick of Skill —
Lasmeida Metriana Nababan : Emily Dickinson’s Concept Of God In Some Of Her Poems, 2010.
Then Numerals are dowered back — Adorning all the Rule —
Tis mostly Slate and Pencil — And Darkness on the School
Distracts the Childrens fingers — Still the Eternal Rule
Regards least Cypherer alike With Leader of the Band —
And every separate Urchins Sum — Is fashioned for his hand —
In the first stanza, Here the “Father” signifies God, and “Leader of the Band” implies Moses, who is in charge of God’s children. Dickinson ridicules the Father’s
authority especially when The Father is an arithmetic techer and teaches his students the “Value of it’s Ten,” but numerals are after all “ dowered back” to the students.
This suggest that the students have been already endowed with ability in arithmetic. In here I think Emily wants to say that all the rules of God is ridicules. Even if
“darkness” of the classroom distracs their fingers, they can still follow the “eternal Rule” and do not need the teacher anymore. Dickinson succeds in secularizing the loft
Christian moral law by degrading it into a mere arithmetic lesson and ridiculing the temporary authority of the father. Here she also does not not believe in God’s words.
She thinks all of His Word is ridicules. Especially when she know that many people wants to do all the Rules that given by God. In this poem she denies the Christian
believe in obeying the Word or the Rule of God.
Lasmeida Metriana Nababan : Emily Dickinson’s Concept Of God In Some Of Her Poems, 2010.
4.9.2 A Reflection of Emily Dickinson’s Concept About God is Hypocrite In Of God we ask one favor, 1601
Of God we ask one favor, That we may be forgiven —
For what, he is presumed to know — The Crime, from us, is hidden —
Immured the whole of Life Within a magic Prison
We reprimand the Happiness That too competes with Heaven
This poem was written in 1884. and consits of one stanza. I think in this poem she wants to tell us that she doubt that God is kind. If we pray and asking a bless from
God, she doubt that God will give it straightly for us because she think That God is Hypocrite. He allows us to pray just to show Him that we have sin.
Dickinson must have sensed the approach of her death. In the poem, one can notice that she depends on the Calvinist teachings of God’s omnipotence, omniscience, and
judgment. She writes about human sin and the final judgment of omniscient God, expresses her sense of imprisonment under the obsolute control of God, and
acknowledges that human pursuit of happiness on the earth is in conflict with God’s law. Undoubtly, Dickinson’s concept of Deity is Calvinistic. She Completely ignores
the dominant Arminiazed idea of God.
Lasmeida Metriana Nababan : Emily Dickinson’s Concept Of God In Some Of Her Poems, 2010.
4.9.3 A Reflection of Emily Dickinson’s Concept About God is Hypocrite In God made a little Gentian
God made a little Gentian It tried to be a rose
And failed, and all the summer laughed But just before the snows
There came a purple creator That ravised all the hill;
And the summer hid her forehead, And mockery was still
The frosts were her condition; The Tyrian would not come
Until the North evoked it, “Creator Shall I bloom?
In this poem, Emily Dickinson also tries to contrast with God. When God be a gentian, she prefer to be rose. She compares herself to a little gentian which grows to
a purple rose. I think the way she chooses the rose because she thinks that she can have such a good life without the God Himself. She wants to tell that she can have
better life without God. Even she realized that to live is not as simple like that a bad things can happen. Her realism cannot be seen here; instead, her voice shows sely-
pitying sentimentalism. She creates the self –image of royalty by connecting herself with the purple color. This royal self-image could suggest that she yearns to be a
special creatures to the creator, that is, the elect in the Calvinistic sense. Although the
Lasmeida Metriana Nababan : Emily Dickinson’s Concept Of God In Some Of Her Poems, 2010.
poems ends with nagging question,” shall I –bloom?,” not with an affirmation of faith, her anxiety reveals a longing to be God’s choosen child.
Lasmeida Metriana Nababan : Emily Dickinson’s Concept Of God In Some Of Her Poems, 2010.
CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
