Letter 3, sheet 7,
Very romantic image of them alone in the woods, an image of extasy, of being in “bloom”, of flying in the “Ether”. There is a release at the end tied to the image of “in white” which alludes to marriage, to virginity, to a new beginning?
These letters feel uncomfortably personal, like she wouldn’t want us reading them?
Letter 3, sheet 6,
The imagery is like that of a bride “in white” and growing into old age (“cane”) but there is a great distance between them, perhaps the distance between heaven and earth, between horizon and shore. There is a real longing here, a genuine desire to be together with “master” but also the anxiety that perhaps she might “disappoint” (wound?)
Letter 3, sheet 5,
Carlo sighting! So then when the sea / horizon overtakes her, she imagines her and master switching places? Is this what she means by dying as fast as she could, that she wants to switch places? Is she waiting for death, to go to that “untried country”?
Letter 3, sheet 4,
Perhaps the volcanic imagery is a symbol of her heart’s passion which might have caused both of them pain, and that’s why she needs a leech to bleed out the excess in her which is larger than her (letter 1, sheet 1, letter 2, sheet 1)? Is she overflowing with pain? With passion? Is there a difference? Then she combines the horizon with the edge of the sea, as if the horizon is closing in at her?
Letter 3, Sheet 3,
She continues with the theme of redemption in relation to repression and that which is forbidden. This leads into her wondering if master’s heart is in the same place as hers, so does she mean to admit she’s done something wrong which requires redemption but only because she’s human and makes mistakes of the human heart? Is it jealousy? Is the wound a wound she caused?
Letter 3, Sheet 2,
She’s asking for “Redemption”, and she’s asked this before in letter 2 when she asked not to be banished. Is this “redemption” related to the image of Thomas and Christ’s wounds? And how is she altered, is it only in age since she still loves the same? She also wants to breathe the same air that “master” has, inhabit the same space, feel the same thing, but she feels sorrow at their separation.
Letter 3, Sheet 1,
She begins with a wound again (like 2’s Tomahawk) then follows it up with the image of doubting Thomas and Jesus’ wounds as proof of faith. Does she think of “master” this way, as like Christ’s wounds that she must see to believe in him? Is “master” a wound she feels? And this is related to the image of the heart, first seen on this sheet as the one “He built … in me”. Wound leads to heart.
It is really unusual how much she worked on these letters, but then it might offer some insight into how she went about the writing process with her numerous revisions in pencil and ink, and how she turned “He” into “I dont”. I wonder why she’d make such a careful alteration, but then later add many changes in pencil below? Did she mean for the letter to be done at one point then thought of something new to add?
Letter 2, Sheet 4,
Again with the nautical / boat imagery she likes to use about the journey of life being like an ocean voyage (and a nice play on the word “tug”). And who is the “tug”? Is it “master”, is it inspiration? She seems so eager to please and not offend and I’m also reminded of those imaginary conversation we have when we’re lonely and want to express ourselves but can’t in person.
Letter 2, Sheet 3,
This feels very stream of consciousness in how she goes from “wonder” stinging her more than the bee to saying the bee never stung her – is this thinking / writing the “gay music” she hears? But overall she talks of injury, of a “Tomahawk in [her] side” but she does not complain (like ‘I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself” DH Lawrence). Has “master” hurt her? What’s the injury?
Letter 2, Sheet 1,
Again, more uncertainty in her inability to find the right words. Here she describes being shunned like an odd “Backwoodsman” who has is on the verge of being banished from civilization, from “master”. She wants forgiveness and at this point in the letter she seems more certain of her word choice once she asks for forgiveness. Are these related?
“As Dickinson wrote she also revised – cancelling words, substituting others, and setting down unresolved alternatives as she proceeded” – “unresolved” being the greatest thing about her writing. I love how this intuits her process as an inertia that she worked with, as if she saw writing as riding a current, making a rudder correction as she went, but not worrying about the journey having any specific meaning.
Letter 1, Sheet 4,
The idea of sickness still lingers and though she seems relieved that Master isn’t in “Heaven”, she is still concerned for their health and wants to hear news, but from whom? How? They way the lips speak of “Dawn”, or the way sailors long for home but can’t communicate to the land? There’s a real longing in this letter for news of health, connection, and its relationship to the universe.
Letter 1, Sheet 3,
Interesting image of the lips whispering at sunset which are also saying “Dawn” somewhere else in the world. She loves to write about movement and the cycles of the universe, specifically circular movement.
She writes about being like the sailor at sea that wants to come home – perhaps on the Sabbath? She connects the hills to the blue waves.
Letter 1, Sheet 2,
She speaks of the “Violets” that are next to her (perhaps in the garden as well on her desk), and she mentions “Spring”, so could master be the season of renewal that cures (sick) winter?
She wants to create, like an artist, but she scolds the flowers?
Funny how there is a connection to The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock with “to and fro” & “Mr. Michael Angelo”. Did Eliot know of this letter?
Letter 1, sheet 1:
We learns she and Master are sick, and perhaps she thought he was “in Heaven” (dead), but she hears his voice again and that makes her happy. Could master maybe not be a person, but something else, a force, like nature? Like a season which she hears coming like a bird chirping when long (sick) winter is over?
I love how it’s the analysis of her handwriting, specifically the word “the” which gives us a clue as to when these letters were written. I mean, we don’t know the “the” of the poems, so all we can do is analyze the how of the “the” (not the why of the “the”).
I sometimes get the impression that if Emily were looking down on us that she’d be having a great time seeing all the trouble she’s put us through.
I think the fact these they aren’t dated, and their composition is so obscure makes me think that these might have considered these to be some other form of writing all together, not letters, not poetry, but maybe something we don’t have a word for?
Why did Lavinia burn all of Emily’s correspondences? Of course since the Master letters weren’t part of those correspondences then they might have been in with her poems, so could she have considered these letters something else?
“Dickinson did not write letters as a fictional genre”. Do we know this? Maybe she didn’t have the pure intent of fiction in mind, but if she wrote these as a creative piece then they would be part of the fiction genre. Dickinson was ahead of the curve, artistically speaking, in so many other ways, why deny she went even further?
I love how it’s unexpected when he is excited that she brought the weed home. I was worried too that he wasn’t going to go for it, but his relief and joy was nice and it earns how “Nadia laughed until she cried”. Beautiful and tender moment.
“A year had passed” since they were last in their home country, and I believe this is the first mention of how much time has actually passed. In a way it feels longer, like a lifetime has passed, but it’s only been a year. A lot can happen in a year, but it’s odd because the Earth is right back in the same place relative to its orbit around the sun, though not in the relation to the other stars.
“It seemed to Nadia and Saeed that somehow they lived at once on the ocean and among the peaks” – a liminal space, neither here or there, somewhere in between, like the weirdness of the present which is always here yet never here, shifting and changing, like the fog of Marin and San Francisco, but also never changing.
Though unexpected, it’s also not unexpected that he is perfectly willing to give up everything they’ve built in London to take a chance somewhere else and try to reconnect with each other. Though can they reconnect, will moving actually connect them? No matter the distance they travel together, will that only increase the distance between them? I’m wondering if they can be reconciled in love?
Just as the further he is from his original place the more he wants to strengthen his connections to that place through his interactions with other people from that place, he also wants to reconnect to Nadia, but he is a refugee in their relationship, and he is just as adrift as he is as a refugee from his country.
They continue to grow apart even though they are building their new home in their new city together, they are on their own islands, and they both have their own private lives, just like the teenage girl of the white family has hers which she keeps locked up in her diary, a book of secrets she will not tell her family because she too is separate from her family – though aren’t we all on our own?
Interesting observation on being ashamed. This new (white?) family “did not yet know that shames, for the displaced, was a common feeling, and that there was, therefore, no particular shame in being ashamed”. If everyone is ashamed then no one is ashamed – if everyone is a refugee then nobody is a refugee.
The foreman “felt he was caught between then past and the future”. Once again we have the past / present / future issue, and here it’s one that sort of reminds me of the ancient Egyptians building the pyramids with all their massive labor resources juxtaposed with the machinery and automation of the present that can do the work of millions in a week. They are building for the future, just like the pharaohs.
Wonderful image of the old Dutch man and the wrinkled Brazilian man having a conversation even though they don’t speak each other’s language but the gaps in the conversation “were eminently comfortable, almost unnoticed by the two men, as two ancient trees would not notice a few minutes or hours that passed without a breeze”.
Sad to hear Saeed’s father has died, but also there is some peace to it in that he died surrounded by his relatives and was buried next to his wife. Of course this came as second hand knowledge so it might not be true, or it might only be true that he died but not of pneumonia, but something worse that his cousin doesn’t want to say. Hard to trust anyone with news of anything anymore.
Is Hamid referencing 40 acres and a mule (40 meters and a pipe), the promise to African Americans after our own Civil War that they would be provided for? Apparently inflation intrudes on promises too since 40 meters is far less than 40 acres, though a pipe connecting me to utilities is more useful than a mule – at least when there are utilities.
Nice to see Emily’s dog, Carlo making an appearance in one of her poems. Something about the idea of Emily and Carlo hanging out makes me feel good, as in it seems fitting her closest friend would of course be a dog. And I believe that the dog is the “He” in this poem, and that his “bowing” is how a dog who is playing hunkers down excitedly, perhaps as he barks at the sea.
Perhaps what she is describing here is how even the simple friendship of a dog can save a person, that friendship doesn’t necessarily have to be between people (or God) for it to be meaningful.
The first stanza speaks of a whimsical adventure where the speaker and their “Dog” go for a walk on the beach and while it seems at first that the “Mermaids” are looking at her, it’s also possible the “Dog” senses them too. Dogs have keen senses and when you take them to the beach (or really anywhere) they are nearly overwhelmed with sensory input, but they also lack the understanding of what things are the way we do and so for them it’s not a stretch that what they sense under the water might as well be a mermaid. Thus there is a sense that the speaker is not only describing what they imagine is under the waves, but also what the “Dog” might be imagining, too.
The second stanza seems to keep up this blending of the fantastical with how a “Dog” might be imagining the world (if you could ask them). Here the “Frigates” are not just crewed by deck “Hands”, but the ships themselves seem to be alive, as if the ships are waving back to shore because they are living things. From a dog’s point of view it would all be the same, ship and man, and the dog would gladly bark back as if to wave too. I also love how she’s playing with the word wave and the waves of the sea without once having to use the world. Finally, the “Mouse” might be of special interest to the “Dog” since some dogs are keen to catch small animals, so perhaps the “Dog” has run off on its own adventure leaving the speaker to watch the sea.
Which leads into the third stanza where the speaker lets the tide come up bast their “Shoe”, then their “Apron”, then “Belt”, and finally the tide rolls in all the way up to their “Boddice”. Why does the speaker not move? Do they want to drown? Or are they unable to move because their “Dog” is not currently with them because they have run off to catch a “mouse”? If we think of this tide as the troubles of life that sometimes seem to want to drown us, then these troubles seem unconquerable when we are alone and have no friend to help us with them. And in the fourth stanza when the speaker has been pulled under water (perhaps there was a strong riptide / undertow) they seem resigned to their fate that they will be consumed, until they “started” because something has come along to save them.
In the fifth stanza the “Dog” reappears by the speaker’s side – “I felt His Silver Heel” – and with his gentle mouth he nips at the speaker’s “Ancle” (ankle) as if to pull the speaker back to shore and to safety. Then, once back on shore – “the Solid Town” of the sand / beach – “The Sea withdrew” as the “Dog” barks at it, head down playfully but alert, as if he’s barking at the “Mermaids” or the “Frigates”. The “Dog”, because he is a fearless companion, has saved the speaker from the troubles that had been consuming them because the “Dog” is a perfect friend, a friend who does not judge or complain and who will always be by your side when you most need them.
When you’re having a bad day, your dog will cheer you up seems to be what EMily might be saying here, and it’s a wonderful poem.