The poem I would like to discuss today is No. 303 by Emily Dickinson.

In general, the poem seems to talk about how a person is shutting herself from the world. In this poem, Dickinson uses a lot of —- to pause in between words to words. In total, she used 16 of them. I think it is a way for her to emphasize the meaning of each word and to make readers to think words to words. If we carefully pause at each —-, the poem would be interpreted in a deeper meaning than it seems to mean at the surface.

The poem starts with a soul that selects her own “Society.” This is rather contradict idea to the “Majority.” People in the society are mostly meant to follow the rule of society, the norms. It is a common phenomenon to see people being “socialized” and “behave” the way that would not hurt the society. The irregular function of people will be considered as “rebellious.” Emily Dickinson implies that people should not follow what the norms are, and could shut themselves down from the Society. She also quotes in the biography saying that, “Christ is calling every one here, and I am standing alone in rebellion.” She was trying to express idea of transcendentalism that one should follow his/her own mind.

So, if one is truly believing in one thing, then one should stay “unmoved” even when a Chariots (materialism) is pausing in front of him/her or an Emperor (power) is kneeling to him/her. Emily Dickinson believes that a person should not live in materialism nor power. Because that is what majority think that power and materials are the supreme, Dickinson shuts herself from the society. She does not want to believe in what people were believing. And those power and materials are outside the body so that could not nurture her soul and touch her soul.

The thing that is going to touch the soul is belief. Even though Chariot (materialism) is pausing at the “low gate”, it still could not pass because it is still a gate. Having a belief is not something hard. It is very easy to have belief and that belief can easily cross the gate. Since Soul is from an ample (naive) place, she would not need anything but belief. Just one belief will be enough to occupy her soul. How many people in history have died because of their believes? One belief will be enough for her to turn down any other things from the world (“close the Valves of her attention”) and remain like a deaf. (“Like Stone”)

In addition, Emily Dickinson uses many Capital letters to emphasize the words which made readers think deeper in the meaning of each word. Like Chariots may not mean the real chariots, it may means something fabulous that is artificial. Later, “One” was a difficult one to interpret because there was not sign of that “One” is referring back to “Emperor” or “Chariots.” “One” may symbolizes something else because those two words are from different stanza. Therefore, Emily Dickinson was a great poem on manipulating words and enabled readers to think deeper in her poems.

*This is my version of interpreting this poem. I know many summaries on the internet were saying something totally different but please do not judge it too harsh.