Where Did You Find The Body in Dickinson?

This was one of our response prompts for #4, and it was something I had to dig deeply into to glean an answer for myself. I’m curious, for those of you who chose this prompt, what your answer was. Where did you find the body in Dickinson, and what was it doing there?

For me personally, I found the body around the soul. It might seem rather straightforward, but what’s important about it is how rarely Dickinson speaks of the body as opposed to the soul and spirit. She makes this relationship between the two clear here:

“The Spirit lurks within the Flesh

Like Tides within the Sea

That make the water live, estranged

What would Either be?” (#1627)

You can see this sense of the soul being what makes the body come alive, and that it exists as “Ourself behind ourself, concealed -” (#460), further nesting the soul within the body. My claim for my response was that not only is the soul within the body in Dickinson, but it is trapped there. Dickinson writes: “A single Screw of Flesh / Is all that pins the Soul” (#293), with the use of the word “pins” gives the impression that the body is holding the soul against its will and keeping it from its true destination. Additionally, Dickinson consistently refers to the soul needing to break free of the body to be outside of it, which you see in the following excerpts:

“What if I burst the fleshly Gate – / And passed Escaped – to thee!” (#305)

“If your Soul seesaw – / Lift the Flesh door -” (#329)

“I told him Best – must pass / Through this low Arch of Flesh -” (#454)

“The soul has moments of escape – / When bursting all the doors -” (#360).

In each quote here, the body is restricting the soul or the speaker, and they are having to “burst,” “lift,” or “pass” through to find freedom. Dickinson writes from the other perspective too, with a focus on the body as a gatekeeper.

“The Body – borrows a Revolver – 

He bolts the Door – 

O’erlooking a superior spectre – 

Or More -” (#407).

This stanza seems to indicate the body as an armed guard, locking the door referenced in #329 earlier as it stands, looking over a soul that stands as literally “superior” to itself. Again, in all of this, the soul is looking to escape the body, supposedly where it does not belong. As Dickinson puts it: “The Soul her “not at home / Inscribes opon the Flesh” (#894). There is something lacking in the body that cannot fulfill the soul, hence why it keeps trying to break free.

What was your response to this prompt, if you had one? Or if you didn’t respond to the prompt, throw it out there – where do you think you would find the body in Dickinson?