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Sunday, February 9, 2014

A Reflection on 'I dwell in Possibility' by Emily Dickinson

The first time I read this poem I thought it was discontinuous and meaningless. However, upon closer evaluation and rereading, I noticed the rhymes within each paragraph, and that the main focus was about a house and its architecture. The poem's title signifies that anything can happen; any aspect of the house can be translated into anything imaginable. The author purposefully makes each line of the poem vague and independent, drawing the reader into her world of possibilities. The house represents life and all its comings and goings. The phrases 'numerous of windows', 'superior' doors, and 'everlasting roof' all indicate the different aspects of life that all come together to build a series of separate events that then make up life as we know it. Achievements, failures, deaths, births, aging and sickness are all life events that happen frequently, and some have consequences that last until we die. Even though people come and leave, we can still remain completely self-enclosed, letting nothing or no one into our inner space- 'impregnable of eye'. At the end of the poem we see that despite all these ups and downs, everything we plan for ourselves or for others eventually has to be fulfilled by some use of our hands, which are coordinated by our five senses, and in so doing we 'gather Paradise', creating a life story from these seemingly discontinuous and sometimes meaningless events.

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