(above): A short clip from Hitchcock's film Vertigo. Keep an eye out for camera angle, music choice, and above all, the hauntingly similar characteristics between the woman on the bench and the woman in the painting. How does this clip inform your reading of Dickinson's F 344?
The Role of the Ghostly Narrator in F 344
The speaker in Dickinson’s poem F 344 is deceased. This is a powerful move on the poet’s part – and this brings the haunting and trauma to the poem from the very first line: “’Twas just this time, last year, I died.” The first-person narrative of the ghost forces the reader of the poem to sit adjacent to the deceased, both a spectator and a participant in the telling of the present by an object of the past. The tension between the presence and absence of this specter emanates from every line, as the narrator speaks of the empty space created by his or her own death, and occupies a space outside of the linear progression of time, between the living and the dead. This paradoxical state can only be expressed by the voice of the ghost, who forces the reader to come to terms with the death by recounting the impact of his or her demise on loved ones.
Arguably, therefore, Dickinson’s poem is a poem of trauma: told by the voice of one lost, and forming a link with the reader to the moment of the death. The horror of the death is both there and not there—for the ghostly voice reminds us of the passing, but the year that has elapsed between the death and the telling of the death softens the blow. By using light, playful language, of the “Apples,” “Pumpkins,” “Thanksgiving,” and “Christmas,” the mundane items and holidays reduced the emotion and pain of the reader on the part of the ghost. The sharp blow at the end of the poem disrupts this levity, however. The voice closes the poem with the thought that “just this time, some perfect year— / Themself, should come to me.” The finality of this line emphasizes its dark, twisted tone. It is both wonderful and terrible—for the speaker does not wish to be alone, and yet for this loneliness to cease the speaker’s loved ones would have to die.
Dickinson’s language and structure create a narrative of trauma that transforms the painful experience into a pleasurable one. The natural imagery of the machinations of the farm, the “Corn” with “Tassels,” the “Carts [that] went stooping round the fields” all serve to reconstruct the setting and circumstance leading up to the traumatic event. By grounding the death in a location and by incorporating others into the narrative, Dickinson produces a textual, linguistic expression of the loss. Furthermore, “including other people in the tacit argument about time and memory and loss . . . suggest[s] a narrative by representing one fixed moment, in which the vectoring forces of the story are functional but are not yet resolved” (Tapscott 39). The traumatic poem does not serve to work through what has occurred or make sense of it, but is far more representational and conducive to actually inducing the trauma itself. By definition, trauma is “a psychic injury, esp. one caused by emotional shock the memory of which is repressed and remains unhealed” (OED). This emotional shock cannot be reduced by rational thought or analysis; and the pain and terror associated with the memory cannot be easily deconstructed.
The narrative of trauma works to induce the experiential sensation of the trauma itself—and this is precisely the power of Dickinson’s poem. By aligning the reader with the ghostly voice of the speaker, and providing the contextualization and general explication of the speaker’s pain, Dickinson provides a narrative through which one can both undergo and observe the trauma of death. The first person links the reader irrevocably to the speaker, a connection which is only severed at the end of the poem, when the reader is yet again reminded that the speaker’s voice comes from beyond the grave. The interconnectedness of memory, absence, and loss resonate in ways beyond the scope of the poem; and its power emanates from its general yet specific struggle to overcome the knowledge of one’s own death.
Ultimately, the ghost’s haunting in the poem powerfully displays the incomprehensibility of dealing with the inevitable cycle of life. Dickinson utilizes natural imagery, and creates temporal abysses within the fabric of the poem. The ghost, a phantom of the past and an absent-yet-present voice in the time frame of F 344, vacillates between life and death. A constant reminder of the traumatic past in this present, the ghostly voice asks the reader to confront the reality of one’s own mortality. This is significant not only because it represents a fascinatingly complex narrative that combines trauma theory and hauntology, but also because it is a textual object through which Emily Dickinson’s voice speaks to her reader from her own past. Just as the speaker in her poem does, Dickinson’s poems convey meaning from beyond the grave; and the layered levels of meaning within her poem are further made valuable by the separation of time and place between the modern reader and the writer. By reconstructing the circumstance of trauma and loss, Dickinson constructs that which the mind is unable to piece back together: the repressed, raw, and utterly unfathomable pain of human loss.
The Role of the Ghostly Narrator in F 344
The speaker in Dickinson’s poem F 344 is deceased. This is a powerful move on the poet’s part – and this brings the haunting and trauma to the poem from the very first line: “’Twas just this time, last year, I died.” The first-person narrative of the ghost forces the reader of the poem to sit adjacent to the deceased, both a spectator and a participant in the telling of the present by an object of the past. The tension between the presence and absence of this specter emanates from every line, as the narrator speaks of the empty space created by his or her own death, and occupies a space outside of the linear progression of time, between the living and the dead. This paradoxical state can only be expressed by the voice of the ghost, who forces the reader to come to terms with the death by recounting the impact of his or her demise on loved ones.
Arguably, therefore, Dickinson’s poem is a poem of trauma: told by the voice of one lost, and forming a link with the reader to the moment of the death. The horror of the death is both there and not there—for the ghostly voice reminds us of the passing, but the year that has elapsed between the death and the telling of the death softens the blow. By using light, playful language, of the “Apples,” “Pumpkins,” “Thanksgiving,” and “Christmas,” the mundane items and holidays reduced the emotion and pain of the reader on the part of the ghost. The sharp blow at the end of the poem disrupts this levity, however. The voice closes the poem with the thought that “just this time, some perfect year— / Themself, should come to me.” The finality of this line emphasizes its dark, twisted tone. It is both wonderful and terrible—for the speaker does not wish to be alone, and yet for this loneliness to cease the speaker’s loved ones would have to die.
Dickinson’s language and structure create a narrative of trauma that transforms the painful experience into a pleasurable one. The natural imagery of the machinations of the farm, the “Corn” with “Tassels,” the “Carts [that] went stooping round the fields” all serve to reconstruct the setting and circumstance leading up to the traumatic event. By grounding the death in a location and by incorporating others into the narrative, Dickinson produces a textual, linguistic expression of the loss. Furthermore, “including other people in the tacit argument about time and memory and loss . . . suggest[s] a narrative by representing one fixed moment, in which the vectoring forces of the story are functional but are not yet resolved” (Tapscott 39). The traumatic poem does not serve to work through what has occurred or make sense of it, but is far more representational and conducive to actually inducing the trauma itself. By definition, trauma is “a psychic injury, esp. one caused by emotional shock the memory of which is repressed and remains unhealed” (OED). This emotional shock cannot be reduced by rational thought or analysis; and the pain and terror associated with the memory cannot be easily deconstructed.
The narrative of trauma works to induce the experiential sensation of the trauma itself—and this is precisely the power of Dickinson’s poem. By aligning the reader with the ghostly voice of the speaker, and providing the contextualization and general explication of the speaker’s pain, Dickinson provides a narrative through which one can both undergo and observe the trauma of death. The first person links the reader irrevocably to the speaker, a connection which is only severed at the end of the poem, when the reader is yet again reminded that the speaker’s voice comes from beyond the grave. The interconnectedness of memory, absence, and loss resonate in ways beyond the scope of the poem; and its power emanates from its general yet specific struggle to overcome the knowledge of one’s own death.
Ultimately, the ghost’s haunting in the poem powerfully displays the incomprehensibility of dealing with the inevitable cycle of life. Dickinson utilizes natural imagery, and creates temporal abysses within the fabric of the poem. The ghost, a phantom of the past and an absent-yet-present voice in the time frame of F 344, vacillates between life and death. A constant reminder of the traumatic past in this present, the ghostly voice asks the reader to confront the reality of one’s own mortality. This is significant not only because it represents a fascinatingly complex narrative that combines trauma theory and hauntology, but also because it is a textual object through which Emily Dickinson’s voice speaks to her reader from her own past. Just as the speaker in her poem does, Dickinson’s poems convey meaning from beyond the grave; and the layered levels of meaning within her poem are further made valuable by the separation of time and place between the modern reader and the writer. By reconstructing the circumstance of trauma and loss, Dickinson constructs that which the mind is unable to piece back together: the repressed, raw, and utterly unfathomable pain of human loss.