I Am Eve Emily Dickinsons Identification with Eve in the...

Nudity, power, beauty, paradise, knowledge, authority, rebellion, anger, punishment, and injustice: these are all themes that Emily Dickinson.s poetry grapples with and repeatedly explores. They are also themes that she found in the Genesis narrative of Adam and Eve in her King James Version of the Bible. As a central influence in Dickinson.s Nineteenth Century, Puritan, New England society, the Bible was a primary text at both Amherst Academy and Mount Holyoke, where Dickinson attended (Sewell 362). At home, Dickinson.s father read a chapter a day to his family (Sewell 694), and at age 14, he gave her a copy of the King James text (Seelbinder 18). Everyone in her life encouraged Emily Dickinson to study the Bible,†¦show more content†¦Her sexual, .thoroughly orgasmic. (Ostriker 64) poems seem to be written in defiance of biblical teachings, however they may have been inspired by the story of Eden in the Bible. In its description of Eden and its inhabitants, Genesis 2:25 states: .And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed.. This open attitude about the body is radically different from the confining, repressive attitude prevalent in Dickinson.s society. In some of her poems, she uses Eden to celebrate this state of perfection that Adam and Eve experienced. They were free to be naked and enjoy the flesh without shame. Jack Capps says that, in Dickinson.s poetry, .Eden is one of the most meaningful of symbols. It implies the supernal bliss of prelapsarian existence. (31). This garden of paradise represents sensuality and freedom. Ostriker notes that Dickinson .lets [scripture] stand for plea sure, eroticizing it by inserting herself in the story, by identifying its spiritualities with her sensualities. (66). In Eden, Dickinson found a place where the body and soul are not separate, opposing entities; rather, they are combined to experience the fullness of a spiritual, sensual life. Poem 249J/269F1 (.Wild Nights - Wild Nights!.) illustrates Dickinson.s celebration of the sensual state of Eden. It metaphorically expresses the speaker.s desire for sexual union with the person being addressed. Short words, five exclamation marks, and