The Influences On Emily Dickinson's Life

Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830 to Edward and Emily (Norcross) Dickinson, in Amherst, Massachusetts. She attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley and Amherst academy. She had two other siblings. Her brother, William Austin Dickinson, had preceded her by a year and a half and her sister, Lavinia Norcross Dickinson. She had only attended Holyoke for a year mainly due to her homesickness and the label of “no hope” given to her by the ministers at Holyoke. She had been fascinated by the transcendentalism movements and metaphysical poetry. Her life was a very secluded one spending most of her life at her home, a home that to her seemed a prison a theme that appeared in her works. Most of her true connections were through
While attending Holyoke, she wrote to her friend Abiah Root "I am not happy, and I regret that last term, when that golden opportunity was mine, that I did not give up and become a Christian." In 1850, she would share similar sentiments with her friend Jane Humphrey: "Christ is calling everyone here, all my companions have answered, even my darling Vinnie believes she loves, and trusts him, and I am standing alone in rebellion." Such resistance to conversion at a time when friends and family were making public confessions reflects a lifelong willingness to oppose popular sentiment. She had made a point of her sovereignty not allowing anyone of near proximity to hear her feelings. Despite her isolation led to her profound self-realization, it ultimately had made her unhappy creating titles such as “A Prison gets to be a friend” (Dickinson) a poem about how once unhappy feelings become so commonplace in your daily life that one can grow accustom and then later learn to accept and trust in like a friend always there for you. Almost like a depiction of Stockholm syndrome or a deep depression that one could describe as manic depression being that her unhappiness sparked her creative side leading her to have written over 1,800 works in her