AFTER GREAT PAIN, A FORMAL FEELING COMES
THEME: PAIN,
ISOLATION, STRUGGLE OF EXISTENCE
SYMBOL
-
“pain” – “formal feeling:
o
intense grief eventually gives way to a formal feeling. It is impossible to sustain the intensity, so
the sufferer retreats into an unresponsive state, where emotions are frozen.
-
the
depiction of an essentially paradoxical state of mind in which one is alive but
yet numb to life, both a living organism and a frozen form.
-
Were
the “great pain” at the beginning of the poem to be considered as a means for
Dickinson to present the torment she is experiencing, assuredly its inclusion
of striking imageries throughout the poem would be more conspicuous.
o choice of word “after” implies to the
readers how the poet retrieves her “formal feeling” after the ceaseless anguish
o nevertheless, there is the ambiguity for the
existence of “formal feeling” – it could be the delusion that is induced by
abrupt demise of the previous perpetual pain.
-
“nerves…
like tombs”
o constitutes an atmosphere of formality, as
if her life is under scrutiny, even upon death.
o The use of the adjective, “ceremonious”
connotes the idea of how every part of her, inclusive of the “nerves”, are
expected to live under societal expectations
o Idea of emotional death is intensified by
making the nerves, usually the transmitters of feeling, into stone sarcophagi.
-
the
helplessness and agony demonstrated within highlights the frustration that the
society’s restraint has exerted upon her. In other way, there is also a subtle
implication of how Dickinson employs the simile to signify a certain extent of
self-defence. The continual agony has compelled her to alienate herself from
the society and being reluctant to express any emotion as a result.
-
Although
the poem is presented in such a lack of emotions and insensibility, without
reserve, the preceding intense distress that the poet has endured would be the
chief determinant. Such self-estrangement and desensitisation in
sentiment are accentuated through the imageries of “the stiff heart”, “the
mechanical feet” and the “ stone-like quartz”, which highlight
the numbness of mental and spiritual detachment.
-
Semantic field of rigidity, representing the
numbness that succeeds intense suffering
-
paradoxical mental state is revealed by the
contradictive description of the “stiff heart” being able to “question”, the
personification of “quartz” with “contentment” and in addition, the “mechanical
feet” which epitomises the disengagement between her mind and body.
o imageries are characterized by the possession of a common
quality, the quality of “stiff” lifelessness; the insistence on this type of
imagery is substantial in confirming the sense of numbed consciousness which is
made more explicit by the statement that the feet move “mechanical(ly)” and are
"regardless" of where they go.
STRUCTURE
-
lines
are bound together, not only by the incessant reference of the imagery to the
impact of melancholy, but also the fact that the poet is stating in series what
happens to parts of the body: from “nerves” to “heart” to “feet”.
-
Instead
of the iambic tetrameter that is usually employed within her poem, Dickinson
judiciously applies the iambic pentameter to embody the constant headache she
is enduring, and thereby, hinders her from constructing proper sentence
structures.
-
lingering
of “great pain” within herself has lead to such suppression on her emotions
that the act of restraining her speech is a manifestation of confining one’s
own lifestyle.
-
Ironically,
the unconventional composition of rhyming couplets – “comes”, “tombs”, “bore”,
“before” allude to the fact that the ability of self-constraint within
Dickinson has been disparaged to such severity that which only agony could
repress her recalcitrance.
-
The
prolonged stanza in the middle evinces a sense of ponderosity that is provoked
by the burden of “stone” acting upon the line; the elongation in this stanza
denotes the poet’s sombre mentality invigorating the faltering of speech
-
the
adoption of assonance with ‘ought’, ‘stone’ mimic the resonance one would
predominantly affiliate with the sheer intensity of pain.
-
the
disposition of hyphenation symbolises the stuttering tone of speech and the
entrapment of sensibility so as to evade from further affliction.
FEATURES
-
the end
of the poem, the poet employs the simile of hypothermia to depict the stages of
one’s combat with depression; “Chill”
precedes the poem, whereas the "Stupor--" preoccupies it;
subsequently "the letting go--" exists on the far side of its ending.
o
Use of
hyphens to fragment the iambi
pentameter, slowing it and mirroring the stages experienced by sufferers of
hypothermia – pain of cold, the dulling of senses and the final loss of
consciousness or will to fight.
o
This line represents the transition, once
again, from agony to numbness, represented by the change that people physically
undergo when exposed to cold. First comes the chill, which is extreme pain.
Stupor is unresponsiveness. Letting go, then, can represent two things, either
death or acceptance. Death can represent the idea that the narrator is overcome
by extreme pain and sadness permanently and “dies” as one would of hypothermia.
However, “letting go” can also refer to letting go of the pain, and that death
is some kind of permanent relief from suffering, perhaps symbolizing acceptance
or coming to terms with what happened.
o
In a way, this line can represent the choice
of the narrator, either to drown in terrible event and its memory, or to
somehow regain her humanness, through letting go of the pain associated with
the memory in order to heal.
-
Should
the deification of ‘Heart’ resemble the anamorphic state of her rationality,
incontestably, the sense of detachment that is entailed within would be
considered more salient.
o Such rupture is reiterated through the
metaphorical link between the heart and “quartz”, suggesting the inorganic
facet of the poet, in which no cessation can be detected, but only with the
recurrent forthcoming of suffering
-
Reinstating
this unremitting experience, Dickinson illustrates the circular movement of
“the feet” “going round” and thereby typifying the lack of control in her life,
even upon the notion of time. The poet’s mentality is immersed in such
paralysis that the disparity between “yesterday” and “centuries” is obsolete to
her.
-
“yesterday—or
centuries before?”
o The
phrase also evokes the timeless quality of suffering. All human beings have
suffered throughout history, be it symbolically as Christ did (mentioned in the
previous line) or physically and emotionally. Thus, pain as a human experience
is eternal, yet constraining. It perpetually shackles us because it is inextricably
linked with the human condition.
-
With
the employment of the definite article – “The” in coalescence with “nerves”,
“heart” and “feet”, accentuate the sense of severance that which the poet holds
from her organs.
-
Such
apathy towards life is revealed through “ought”; she is engrossed by the
omnipresent pain in which the deception of being condemned to the realms of the
inferno is engendered.
-
“This
is the hour of lead”
o with the symbolic imagery of “lead” being
poisonous and heavy, the poet is not only highlighting her headache and its
aftermath, but also emphasising the existing era that transcends the norm.
-
The
‘chill’ that which precedes the ‘letting go’ but disconnected by the ‘stupor’
standing in the midst of such a current state of liminality, would seek to
allow one to infer correlation with the reference of hypothermia from the
simile ‘as freezing persons recollect the snow’ – such equates the emotionless
notion of death to that of surrendering to reality.
CONCLUSION:
After all, the desensitisation is nothing but merely a veil “to justify despair”.
After all, the desensitisation is nothing but merely a veil “to justify despair”.
MAIN QUOTATIONS
-
“hour
of lead”
-
“first
chill, then stupor, then the letting go”
-
“mechanical
feet go round”
-
“nerves
sit ceremonious like tombs”
RHYMES
-
“comes”,
“tombs”
-
“bore,
before”
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