& # 8230 ; Essay, Research Paper

Although deep in linguistic communication and construction, Dickinson gives her work an

instinctually graphic sense of emotion. Her scrutiny of the feeling of

hurting focal points in on merely a few of the subtler niceties of hurting that are

built-in parts of the experience. She draws in on an & # 8220 ; Element of Blank & # 8221 ;

that she introduces in her opening line. In researching hurting, she proposes

that this & # 8220 ; blankness & # 8221 ; is a self-propagating force that is capable to the

dynamic forces of clip, history and perceptual experience, but merely to an extent.

Her first reference of & # 8220 ; Pain & # 8221 ; in the first line does non separate this

peculiar emotion as being of a peculiar trade name of hurting. She substitutes

no other words for & # 8220 ; pain. & # 8221 ; By proposing no other words for & # 8220 ; hurting, & # 8221 ; she

chooses the most semantically across-the-board term for the emotion. She therefore

gives her work the duty of analyzing the collective, general

comprehensiveness of & # 8220 ; pain. & # 8221 ; Her options offer intensions that color her use

of & # 8220 ; Pain & # 8221 ; : the sense of loss in & # 8220 ; heartache & # 8221 ; and & # 8220 ; mourning & # 8221 ; or the sense of commiseration

in & # 8220 ; anguish & # 8221 ; and & # 8220 ; suffering. & # 8221 ; She chooses the lexical vagueness of & # 8220 ; Pain & # 8221 ;

to encompass all these aspects of the emotion.

In presenting the & # 8220 ; Element of Blank, & # 8221 ; it becomes the context that she therefore

examines hurting. The exact context of & # 8220 ; Blank & # 8221 ; possesses a vagueness that

suggests its ain insufficiency of solid definition. Possibly this sense of

indefinition is the feeling that this use of & # 8220 ; Blank & # 8221 ; is meant to

inspire. In this context, this & # 8220 ; blankness & # 8221 ; is implicative of a quality of

empty ignorantness that is supported by the following few lines: & # 8220 ; It can non

recollect When it begun. & # 8221 ; This inability to retrieve raises a major job

with regard to the nature of & # 8220 ; Pain ; & # 8221 ; viz. whether Dickinson is taking

to body & # 8220 ; Pain & # 8221 ; by giving it a human quality like memory, or is in fact

contradicting the humanity of doing it unable to retrieve. Several lines below,

she suggests that & # 8220 ; Pain & # 8221 ; does in fact possess some kind of limited sentient

ability in acknowledging & # 8220 ; Its Past? enlightened to perceive. & # 8221 ; It is really

possible that it is the & # 8220 ; Pain & # 8221 ; that is being enlightened or comprehending.

These witting Acts of the Apostless of giving & # 8220 ; Pain & # 8221 ; some kind of capacity of consciousness

personify & # 8220 ; Pain & # 8221 ; to some extent.

In continuance of & # 8220 ; Pain? s & # 8221 ; inability to retrieve, She proceeds, & # 8220 ; It can non

recollect When it begun? or if there were A clip when it was not. & # 8221 ;

& # 8220 ; Pain? s & # 8221 ; inability to remember farther personifies it by besides doing it

topic to the human ability to bury. Dickinson therefore non merely personifies

& # 8220 ; Pain, & # 8221 ; but makes it capable to the progress of clip. This temporal

arrangement of & # 8220 ; Pain & # 8221 ; , establishes & # 8220 ; Pain & # 8221 ; within the context of the

patterned advance of clip by giving it a Past, a Future, and presumptively, a

Present. Although she places & # 8220 ; Pain & # 8221 ; within the context of clip, she

indicates it is non limited by clip. & # 8220 ; Pain? s & # 8221 ; inability to retrieve its ain

beginnings strongly suggests an utmost span of clip since its origin. This

coupled with Dickinson? s claim that & # 8220 ; It has no Future? but itself, & # 8221 ; and

that & # 8220 ; Its Infinite contain Its Past & # 8221 ; indicates some connexion with the

ageless. Here, the & # 8220 ; Infinite & # 8221 ; suggests non merely the infinite sense of

infinity, but a more spacial sense of the universe and the catholicity of the

experience of & # 8220 ; Pain. & # 8221 ;

This usage of the hereafter besides serves the impression that & # 8220 ; Pain & # 8221 ; leads to more

& # 8220 ; Pain, & # 8221 ; go oning in Dickinson? s mention to & # 8220 ; Its Past? enlightened to

perceive New Periods? of Pain. & # 8221 ; In this one stanza, she invokes the hereafter

and the past, keeping that both are cardinal to a cyclicality, where the

& # 8220 ; Pain & # 8221 ; of the past, gives rise to the & # 8220 ; Pain & # 8221 ; of the present and future.

That & # 8220 ; Pain & # 8221 ; contains an & # 8220 ; Infinite & # 8221 ; within itself supports this impression of

& # 8220 ; Pain & # 8221 ; being cyclical, as it can therefore stay dynamic yet ageless. That it

is & # 8220 ; enlig

htened to comprehend New Periods” of the esthesis of “Pain” suggests

that a mechanism of this self-propagation involves the recognition of

past periods of & # 8220 ; Pain. & # 8221 ; The & # 8220 ; enlightenment & # 8221 ; therefore becomes some kind of

drift for the extension of the & # 8220 ; Pain & # 8221 ; experience as it continues from

the yesteryear into the hereafter.

To foreground this sense of cyclicality, Dickinson completes the verse form with

the first word: & # 8220 ; Pain. & # 8221 ; She completes the rhythm of her verse form in its

reduplication, giving it closing, but at the same clip, reconnecting it back

to its beginning. In making so, she about invites the reader to reread the

verse form, pulling the reader back in to reconsider her significance. In much the

same manner, it is this redirect examination that & # 8220 ; Its Past? enlightened & # 8221 ; suggests.

Enlightenment comes from some grade of analysis, and is hence related

to the reevaluation of the verse form that Dickinson invites.

Dickinson? s description of & # 8220 ; Pain & # 8221 ; as holding an & # 8220 ; Infinite & # 8221 ; besides suggests a

spacial expansivity in add-on to a temporal one. This sense of & # 8220 ; Pain & # 8221 ;

being limitless echoes the wide definition of & # 8220 ; Pain & # 8221 ; that she suggests by

merely utilizing the one term for the experience, and utilizing it lone twice. Within

the context of the verse form, & # 8220 ; Pain & # 8221 ; is her lone topic, and therefore encompasses

all every bit far as the work is concerned. The infiniteness of & # 8220 ; Pain? s & # 8221 ;

being within clip lends to its sense of overpowering size when

considered & # 8220 ; Infinite. & # 8221 ; It therefore suggests an about touchable being of

& # 8220 ; Pain & # 8221 ; as a corporeal entity, crossing towards every skyline. This physical

perceptual experience of & # 8220 ; Pain & # 8221 ; is non rather tangible due to its deficiency of physical

description in the verse form. All that is known about it is its outstanding

size. That sense of size alone lends some kind of semi-perceptible physical

weight to the description.

In her exclusive focal point on & # 8220 ; Pain & # 8221 ; within the context of the & # 8220 ; Element of Blank, & # 8221 ;

Dickinson chooses such a narrow focal point that it is hard to claim she is

seting Forth a unequivocal, embracing definition of hurting. Alternatively, she

writes about a vague, vague experience called & # 8220 ; Pain & # 8221 ; that she leaves the

reader to specify. Note that a semantic differentiation must be made between

hurting and the impression of & # 8220 ; Pain & # 8221 ; that Dickinson chooses to utilize. She does non

define whether her impression of hurting is emotional, religious or physical, or

possibly a combination of all three. Her intervention of & # 8220 ; Pain & # 8221 ; as a

semi-cognizant entity, infinite but someway limited, makes it an abstract,

alone construct that necessitates its differentiation as & # 8220 ; Pain. & # 8221 ;

She does depict & # 8220 ; Pain & # 8221 ; within the context of the nature of its being. By

denoting its infinite nature, she besides proposes a capacity to

self-propagate. However, she becomes ill-defined in specifying the restrictions of

these abilities. She explains that it has existed for so long, that it has

no memory of its origin, but it is ill-defined whether that is the mistake of

& # 8220 ; Pain? s & # 8221 ; inability to retrieve or & # 8220 ; Pain? s & # 8221 ; infinite history. Dickinson besides

indicates that & # 8220 ; Pain & # 8221 ; already has a doomed hereafter, one that includes merely

more & # 8220 ; Pain. & # 8221 ; Despite its infinite nature temporally and spatially, & # 8220 ; Pain & # 8221 ;

is non infinite in a sentient sense, as it is limited by its deficiency of

perceptual experience and by the transition of clip.

Dickinson leaves much unexpressed about the experience and nature of & # 8220 ; Pain. & # 8221 ; She

makes no touchable mentions about the fortunes of her & # 8220 ; Pain, & # 8221 ; go forthing

the reader to cover merely with a indeterminate, abstract impression to associate to.

In merely associating the & # 8220 ; Element of Blank & # 8221 ; to its topographic point temporally and

spatially, her merely hypothesis about the mechanism of & # 8220 ; Pain & # 8221 ; concerns its

cyclicality. Her exclusive focal point on this construction avoids treatment of any

other facet of the experience or esthesis of & # 8220 ; Pain. & # 8221 ;

-another imperative from your friendly local interplanetary Imperial government

-sulik