Women on the Fringe: Representations of Depression in Lorde and Emily Dickinson

"Perfect Places"

In "There is a morn by men unseen –" (also known as poem 13), Emily Dickinson creates a fantasy feminist world where women “dance and game” (line 4) all day long, unburdened by the constraints of the real, male-dominated world. In the first three stanzas, Dickinson describes this imaginary paradise as a version of a “seraphic May” (3) filled with beauty and joy. Dickinson constantly emphasizes how idyllic the landscape of this fantasy world is, even remarking how the stars are like “cups of Chrysolite” (17), rendering the beginning of the poem an exercise in romanticism marked by a celebratory tone, quite unlike many of her other poems that exude depression and isolation. However, in the last stanza, Dickinson’s message shifts to become much more disturbing, hinting of mental illness as she wishes for death. After all, the glory and freedom of the first three stanzas are nothing more than a fantasy; this perfect place could never exist in the real world, so Dickinson instead awaits “thy far – fantastic – bells” (22), the death toll, as death is the only way she can escape reality and delight in “the different dawn” (24).

Similarly, in “Perfect Places,” Lorde expresses both her disappointment in finding that perfection is always but a fantasy and the futility of searching for perfection in the real world. Just as Emily Dickinson created her own fantasy world in her mind, Lorde continually searches for freedom, happiness, perfection – first in partying, then in dancing, finally in one-night stands – but despite her attempts at making fantasy a reality, she repeatedly asserts that her life is nothing more than a string of “graceless nights.” Instead, Lorde is condemned to “live and die” each night, burdened with her own version of depression where she “can’t stand to be alone” because she knows that reality will never match her expectations, she will always be let down, and she will always have to live alone in a world that disappoints her. At the end of the song, the repeated question asking “what the fuck are perfect places anyway” emphasizes Lorde’s existential dread in knowing that perfect places can never exist in the real world, and though she does not wish for death as Emily Dickinson did to escape to the perfect afterlife, her depression and disillusionment with reality are the same.
 

This page has paths:

This page references: