E block--James on 435

James Wronoski

9/8/2011

E-Block

Making sense of “Much Madness is Divinest Sense”

            The influence of a writer’s upbringing often foretells who the writer will become and what his or her personal writing style will be. There is no situation where this is more evident than in the case of American poet, Emily Dickinson. In her early life, Dickinson was exposed to the flaws in the authoritarian rule that men imposed on women in the nineteenth century. Her father, Edward Dickinson, firmly believed in the nineteenth century notion that women, regardless of class or intellect, were limited inherently by their gender. In the mind of Edward Dickinson, being the man of the house meant ruling the family with an iron fist especially when it came to Emily and her mother. In Emily’s childhood she witnessed the power that her father exercised over her mother, writing that when her father spoke her mother “trembled, obeyed and was silent”. Despite the fact that Edward Dickinson held a tyrannical rule over his wife, Emily revered Edward and had untold respect for him. Emily’s upbringing left her in awe of her father while igniting a passionate resentment towards the male dictatorship of the mid-1800s. Emily’s struggles with female oppression molded her into one of American Literature’s greatest poets.

            At first glance Dickinson’s poem, “Much Madness is Divinest Sense”, seems too brief to hold any deep meaning but when the reader can understand who Emily Dickinson was, it is easy to draw conclusions about the poem’s meaning. When this poem is viewed from the standpoint of Emily Dickinson it is quite simple to make divinest sense of the poem’s madness. This poem is Dickinson’s commentary on the male dominated society that she lived in during the mid-1800s. In line one when Dickinson talks about madness, madness is referring to the fact that in the 19^th century, oppression of women was quite acceptable and even expected. That is why Dickinson says that madness is divinest sense; when she says sense, she means to say that it is the accepted social standard, not that it truly makes sense for women to be oppressed. In a way, Dickinson is fiercely rejecting the ideas of people like her father who put limitations on women, especially intelligent and educated women like her. In the second and third lines Dickinson specifies that it is only to the discerning eye that madness is sensible which is somewhat ironic when it is clear that anyone who believes that the oppression of women is sensible or justified must be ignorant. Then in the next line when Dickinson says that it is the majority that believes this, she is saying that no one attempts to combat the injustices that are done unto women in that time period therefore it is the majority of people who believe this form of sexism to be acceptable. From her point of view, people simply accepted the madness of this injustice as a part of life.

            In the final three lines, Dickinson concludes sarcastically that people in society who adhere to the status quo and accept that oppression is an inevitable aspect of life are sane, while those who make an effort to fight for equality against the male dictatorship are deemed dangerous and unfit for social interaction. These lines are in a way making reference to the fact that Dickinson’s own sanity was constantly called into question. By connecting the fact that society viewed her as insane to the fact that people who stand up against male tyranny are viewed in that same light, one can conclude with certainty that Dickinson is siding with those who combat the social injustice of sexism in the 19^th century.

            Through-out the poem, the theme of fighting injustice towards women is paramount. This is quite obvious if we are simply to look at the evidence in Emily Dickinson’s personal life and her relationship with Edward Dickinson. From that relationship stemmed an idea; the idea that the status of women in American culture is not set and that if oppression is met head-on, with strong opposition, it can be stopped. Dickinson expressed this idea with zeal in “Much Madness is Divinest Sense” and she argued her point successfully.