Poems 466 and 473 interest me because they are very different descriptions of possibility and shame using the metaphor of a house. 466 depicts a house as living and full of possibility while 473 examines the suffocating life that can exist inside a house. In 466 the house is a metaphor for possibility. It is a space that is “numerous”(3) and vast, allowing for one to grab paradise in their hands. The house feels boundless and “everlasting”(7), reaching out like the sky. Here possibility is tied to space and freedom of mobility. Dickinson describes the house as  “impregnable of eye”(6) meaning it cannot be captured by human sight. This is in stark contrast to the physical house in 473 and the life the speaker lives with in it. The first difference I noticed is in terms of space. The speaker takes “the smallest room”(2)  and describes having very little in it with her. The speaker then continues to describe how small they are within the small space. First physically they are the “slightest in the house”(1) and then how small they made themself by “never [speaking]- unless addressed”(9) and keeping their voice “brief and low”(10)  because they “could not bear to live- aloud-” (11) and felt shame towards making any noise. Ultimately the shame is so great that the speaker says that could have died from it. 

These two poems stood out to me as potentially being in conversation about possibility and shame utilizing the speaker’s relationship to a house to express the powers of both, For poem 466, Possibility itself is a house that pushes its inhabitants to reach paradise. In 473, a house is a place to hide in shame of being bigger than the room one lives in. These are such stark relationships but both ones that make sense to me. In a lot of ways the vastness of possibility can lead to shame in not pursuing the possibility made available to us. Conversely, sometimes shame in oneself is so great that we put ourselves in the smallest room in the greatest house and hope no one hears us. Dickinson portrays both of these as valid responses and depicts both emotions in a way that they can exist in confrontation and conversation.