Womens Rights Themes in Dickinsons Poems - Research Paper Example

They had no benefit from education because they had no chances to get a job. After marriage, things could get even worse because everything a woman had; ranging from her name, life savings, and land became husband’s property. In case of a divorce, husbands enjoyed the custody of children. Worst of all, women were not even allowed to speak in public. The situation was even worse in the case of African Americans and Native Americans. Thus, one can say that in a single word, the issues faced by women in the 19th century can be termed as isolation (Ryan 5).

The Women’s Rights movement was an effort to come out of this total isolation. This social isolation faced by women and the consequent hopelessness and frustration are visible in the works of Dickinson. Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was one of the famous writers of antebellum American literature. She had her birth in Amherst, Massachusetts on 10 December 1830. She lived a life of splendid isolation and got very little of what she wrote published in her life time. The isolation and seclusion that women faced in the society of the nineteenth century is visible in many of the works by Dickinson.

This work intends to explore a few of them to identify the presence of the essence of Women’s Rights Movement. The first poem analyzed is “Success is Counted sweetest”.. Evidently, Dickinson was hinting to the fact that in a society where males enjoyed all the socially important positions, the isolation faced by women goes unnoticed and unrecognized. When one goes to the second couplet, the poet says, “To comprehend a nectar/Requires the sorest need” (Lines 3-4). In other words, just like the beginning, the poet says only one with sorest need, or women, can feel the sweetness of success, or “nectar”.

The second stanza starts, “Not one of all the purple/Host who took the flag today/Can tell the definition/ So clear of victory” (Lines 5-8). Continuing the same meaning as in the first stanza, the poet claims the army that wins does not understand the meaning of victory. In other words, the one who does not have a chance to win understands what the sweetness of success is. Clearly indicating the agony of the 19th century women, the poet writes, “As he defeated-dying/On whose forbidden ear/The distant strains of triumph/Burst agonized and clear” (Lines 9-12).

Clearly, according to the poet, women are a defeated class as they have no rights in the society, and she compares this situation with death. Also, according to her, to hear the distant strains of triumph is rather agonizing. Here again, the writer says the cheers of success is heard louder in the ears of the one who is defeated and dying. With this much of information, one can declare without doubt that Dickinson was seriously influenced by the 19th century social isolation of women as she herself was a victim, and knowingly or unknowingly, the same agony experienced by all women at that time and the issues that led to the Women’s Rights