Feminine Consciousness In Emily Dickinson's Poetry

Emily Dickinson, a famous American poetess of the 19th century, is a unique and unprecedented poet. Dickinson is hailed as an equal to such distinguished male poet Walt Whitman, and her poems are appreciated by people all over the world. Emily Dickinson leads a way different from her American male predecessors in the aspects that she designs her poetic themes, her images applications and unconventional language techniques. From analysis of her unique femininity poetry, this thesis expounds that her poems are the landmark of American feminine consciousness and mark the period of the awakening of her feminine consciousness.This paper mainly tries to demonstrate the process of Dickinson's feminine consciousness awakening by adopting feminist criticism theories and Freudian psychoanalytic bisexuality theory. This paper disposes Dickinson's protest against the inharmonious man-woman relationship in a society of binary opposition. Dickinson finished the sex roles transformation after she had obtained her"Female Self". That is, from a passive female receiver, she turned into an active executor. Traditional male literature has some elements of unbalance and flaws, Dickinson's feminine poems help to correct supplement to these flaws, thus make the male literature become more and more balanced and completed. And her feminine poems prove that it is necessary for woman writers to create works in literary field. Particularly, this thesis studies the essential qualities of"Female Self"that Emily Dickinson constructs in her poetry and from which she derives her models of subjectivity by using Freud's bisexuality conception. Meanwhile, the same theory has testified that Dickinson has the components of"Male Other"which make her have the functions of feminine and masculine and carry out a covert resistance against the patriarchal society. Eventually, Emily Dickinson takes a lion's share in the man dominated field of poetry and speaks out female own voices and become the representative of women. This thesis consists of three chapters. Chapter one mainly discusses feminine consciousness in Emily Dickinson's themes by applying the feminist criticism theories. Under the pressures of patriarchal society, Dickinson clearly senses the unbalance and defects of patriarchal society. She develops her feminine awareness during her constantly resistances against man-made law society represented by"Father God". Meanwhile, she establishes her female self, and gains her female identity. So Dickinson reconstructs a differently"Female God"to convey women's wills. She constructs her own feminine philosophy system.The second chapter is directed to the feminine consciousness in Dickinson's imagery world. Emily Dickinson is good at using images and metaphors to express the process of her feminine consciousness awakening. It is made up of two parts. In the first part, the author analyzes her female images, testifies the essential qualities of her female self and her successfully sex role's transformations. The second part interprets her male images; the bisexuality theory proves that Dickinson has the ability to perform feminine and masculine functions against the traditional literature rules. Dickinson speaks out female wills in patriarchal society.Chapter three focuses on the feminine consciousness in Dickinson's language style. On the basis of bisexuality theory, throughout most of her poetry, the changing of personal pronoun manifests her unique feminine subjectivity consciousness. By using first personal pronouns, she succeeds in obtaining her feminine self identity: to be an independent female poet. By changing the first personal pronouns into third personal pronouns, she expresses her strong desire to be equal with men in literary field. Her femininity poems make the unbalanced male literature become balanced and completed in language.The conclusion sums up Dickinson's feminine consciousness show in her poetic themes, her unique images as well as her skillful language. The paper not only means to disclose the unbalance and lack of male literature, but also points out why Emily Dickinson achieves the equally high position in American poetry as Walt Whitman.