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• 1 media/melodrama cover.jpg 2018-05-04T03:31:08-07:00 "Sober" and "Sober II (Melodrama)" 11 gallery 2018-05-09T07:12:18-07:00 In poem 407 (or “One need not be a Chamber – to be Haunted“), the uses of meter, of capitalization, and of diction associated with the gothic genre of literature in the first four stanzas emphasize the sinister potential of one’s mind to terrorize itself. At the beginning of the poem, Dickinson invokes the gothic stereotype of a haunted house and asserts that the brain is capable of being haunted just like any “Material Place” (line 4). Next, Dickinson creates an eerie mood in the poem and supports this claim by contrasting traditional gothic situations of physical vulnerability – a “Midnight Meeting” (5) of a ghost, walking through a dark alleyway (9), and finding an “Assassin hid in [one’s] Apartment” (15) – with the even more treacherous threats of psychological danger. To create this juxtaposition, Dickinson alternates between long and short metrical patterns every other line to split each stanza into two couplets: one constructing the physical, popular gothic imagery and the other describing the emotional equivalent. The central function of this comparison (and of the capitalization calling attention to the stereotypical gothic metaphors) within the poem is to describe this abstract and unfamiliar state of mental peril in more easily understandable terms. Without such a contrast, the true severity of losing one’s mind is intangible, but by repeatedly stating that the worst nightmares and fears of Dickinson’s society popularized by gothic literature are “[f]ar safer” (5) than “[o]urself behind ourself” (line 13) – in other words, one’s own mind – effectively illustrates just how horrific losing one’s mind to mental illness really is.
  
  In the last (and arguably most important) stanza, the poem shifts away from explaining the abstract concept of mental anguish and its potency to depicting a man attempting to stave off mental illness. However, although this character “borrows a Revolver” (17) and “bolts the door” (18) in order to protect himself from his own mind, his descent into madness is inevitable, exemplified by the unnatural and difficult pace of the last stanza. The staccato rhythm of the last four lines of the poem (created by the dashes at the end of each phrase – resulting in much more punctuation than in the other stanzas) forces the reader to drudge forward just as the main character must constantly work to fend off depression. However, the unsettlingly abrupt two syllable-long last line arrests both the reader and the protagonist, ending his fight against mental illness and proving that the struggle was in vain. Ultimately, the pessimistic ending and mood of this stanza reinforces the idea that no amount of effort can really save someone from the threat of mental illness because, as the last line suggests, even if one can guard against one source of mental distress, there are always more menaces to protecting a state of mental stability, such as depression or grief or anxiety or even loneliness.
  
  Both "Sober" and “Sober II (Melodrama)” also explore how Lorde tries to distract herself from her own state of depression. In “Sober,” Lorde first references depression in the first verse of the song, declaring that she is “sleeping through all the days,” but leading in to the chorus, she declares that there “ain’t a pill that could touch [her] rush,” exposing how the singer parties (and probably socially uses drugs) to try to escape her mental illness. However, Lorde is only the “Queen of the weekend” – her ‘solution’ to distracting her mind from its terrors is temporary; during the week, when the party is over, her mental anguish returns. Lorde’s desperation to find a way to escape her depression is particularly apparent through the repetition of asking, “what will we do when we’re sober”: in sobriety, after the party – during the time that “Sober II (Melodrama)” explores – she must return to the full force of her troubled psyche.
  
  In "Sober II (Melodrama)," as Lorde describes her empty, post-party home, she explains that the “lights are on and [the partygoers]’ve gone home,” creating a scene of despair that she describes in an interview: “There’s such a sadness to the lights being on after a party, you know, this whole room has sort of been washed in this dark, and to see the corners of the room again can always be a little bit heartbreaking” as she has to return to reality (Stumme). With no one left in the house to distract her mind, Lorde, lonely, asks, “who am I,” as her mental illness returns to haunt her mind. Though Lorde seems at first to disdain the small-minded 'action' of the party the night before, sarcastically labeling minor events at a party as melodrama, she eventually asserts that “our only wish is melodrama” because at least it is an escape from loneliness, from depression. Furthermore, Lorde speaks to the many factors contributing to mental instability, implying that the momentary distraction of the party was not worth the later consequences; she is left wondering “why… bother” because the rumors about how she and the others at the party “kissed and killed each other” will only add to her mental anguish. In the end, all of Lorde’s attempts to guard herself against depression were in vain and may have actually created an internal "spectre" of the mind – the anxiety of rumors – that will only add to her mental illness.