English 509
Feminist Criticism
Fall 2003

Apply one form of feminist criticism to your reading of the following poem, Emily Dickinson’s #280.  In particular, read the poem as the expression of a woman’s experience of existence within a patriarchal society.  What elements in the poem can be understood as representative of patriarchal structures?  How does the female poet inscribe her experience of those repressive structures?  How does the poet inscribe her resistance to those structures?

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro 
Kept treading—treading--till it seemed 
That Sense was breaking through—
 
And when they all were seated, 
A Service, like a Drum— 
Kept beating—beating—till I thought 
My Mind was going numb— 
 
And then I heard them lift a Box 
And creak across my Soul 
With those same Boots of Lead, again, 
Then Space—began to toll, 
 
As all the Heavens were a Bell, 
And Being, but an Ear, 
And I, and Silence, some strange Race 
Wrecked, solitary, here— 
 
And then a Plank in Reason, broke, 
And I dropped down, and down— 
And hit a World, at every plunge, 
And Finished knowing—then--