Summary Of Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes

“Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes” was written about Emily Dickinson. Dickinson was a poet who was born on December 10, 1830 and died in 1886. She lived in Amherst, Massachusetts in almost complete isolation, although she did spend time with her family and maintained multiple correspondences; she was also well read. Dickinson and her sister remained in their parents’ homestead until their deaths. Dickinson was never publically recognized as a poet during her lifetime; her poems were all published post humorously by her family (Academy of American Poets, “Emily Dickinson”). The tone of the poem is calm, peaceful, and curious. The poem is written in first person point of view and Collins is the speaker of the poem. The poem does not follow a rigid structure; it is made up of nine stanzas with varying numbers of lines and line lengths. The poem also does not rhyme. The poem appeals to three senses:

Dickinson lived during the Victorian era and dresses worn during this period were long and often had full and large skirts. The dresses were complex and usually had ruffles or other embellishments (Vintage Fashion Guild). Dickinson’s dress has mother-of-pearl buttons running down the back and holding it together. Mother-of-pearl is a hard, smooth, and shiny surface found on the insides of the shells of some shellfish, like mussels, and is often used to decorate objects or as buttons (Merriam-Webster, “Definition of Mother-of-Pearl”). Like most dresses of the time, there are several buttons holding the dress together. He then compares pulling apart the fabric, once all of the buttons are undone, to “a [swimmer] dividing water”; like water in a lake or an ocean, there is a lot of fabric that has been stitched together to make the dress (Collins). The white color of the dress symbolizes Dickinson’s goodness, innocence, and purity. The narrator is beginning to go beyond the literal layer of meaning in Dickinson’s