[100 Challenge] Roberta Gattel_47

Silences, Emily Dickinson, 1860 - 1865

When I think of Emily Dickinson, I think of her life inside a room; I think of daylight switching on and off on the wallpaper as the only indicator of time passing; I think about how a house can become a prison and the prison a refuge. I think of the hundreds of unpublished poems found in a trunk, under her bed, when she died unknown. I think about how unfair all this is: being born and dying in the shadow of oneself.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers 

That perches in the soul 

And sings the tune without the words 

And it never stops at all 

And sweetest in the Gale is heard 

And sore must be the storm 

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm 

I’ve listened to it in the chillest land 

And on the strangest Sea 

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.”

“Silences” is not only the title of the collection of her poems; it is also the story of a powerful voice that no one wanted to hear. Or that the author herself was afraid to hear.

Sometimes, we are not ready to accept our best qualities, especially when these qualities do not conform to what others expect of us.

Silence has been expected of women for millennia (Sophocles wrote that it brought grace to them), but it is also sometimes convenient: speaking means occupying a space that would remain empty; it means becoming visible, exposing oneself, and facing the Other. Speaking means fighting.

Silence is often the painless solution: it allows people to conserve energy, especially when battles cannot be won.

In a certain sense, Emily Dickinson was silenced by the power of her own voice, as if she was not able to survive the freest part of herself.

Her siren song remained inside a notebook, and the rest of the world was locked outside her door.