Emily Dickinson was a lawyer and attended a seminary college, but she spent the majority of her time alone in her room, writing. Her works demonstrate the intellect, faith, and preoccupation with death and the nature of time that were generated by this background.
The works of Emily Dickinson are rich in emotion and religious imagery and symbolism. An analysis of her poems demonstrates that she shows a vast range of human emotions in her work, including both the joys and sorrows of life, as well a strong reliance on Christian imagery and symbolism.
Poem 324 (Some keep the Sabbath going to Church) shows the unorthodox religious attitude of Dickinson.
The speaker does not keep the Sabbath going to church, she, instead, “keeps it at Home.” Nor does she keep it in Surplice, but instead “I just wear my Wings.”
The poem also shows her to be suspect of organized religions.
In the last stanza, typical of the poet’s four-line stanza style, we see her feelings that religion and spiritual feeling is not something had by orthodoxy, rather it is something that is with one in all one’s actions, all days, not just in Church on Sunday listening to a sermon “So instead of getting to Heaven, at least--/I’m going all along.”
In poem 744 (Remorse – is Memory – awake –) we see Dickinson’s speaker in a state of remorse, which she uses to describe as a condition that no God can cure.
In the last stanza of this poem the speaker tells us that “remorse is cureless,” and “Not even God—can heal—" because ‘tis His institution—and/The Adequate of Hell—." We see that the speaker is saying that remorse and negative emotions are part of God’s whole plan, which is why he does not take it away, a condition as horrific as any Hell.
The poem uses capitalization and metaphor as symbols of Christian religion.
We see that the speaker capitalizes “soul”, “Departed”, “Presence”, “Belie...