In letter #73, Dickinson is writing to Susie (unsurprisingly). Towards the beginning of this letter, Dickinson says “I cannot deny myself the luxury of a minute or two with you” (77), implying that taking the time to write to Susie is the same, or at least similar enough, to actually spending time with her. However, closer to the middle of the poem, Dickinson says “How vain it seems to write, when one knows how to feel” (77), contradicting the implication of her previous statement. This idea reminded me of the conversation we had in class about how Whitman would feel about social media as a form of connection. Is letter writing, to either Dickinson or to us, a form of connection that is either the same or similar enough to actually seeing someone in person? Or is there something fundamentally unique about being in-person that cannot be replicated through letters, no matter how intimately you write to someone? Also, what would Dickinson think of social media?
3 thoughts on “How do Letters Connect Us?”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Given how reclusive Dickinson was, I think letter writing allowed her to be honest and expressive and intense all in turn in ways she might not have been able to if she were with someone in person. When she says it’s vain to write, I’m wondering if maybe she means writing can never do justice to the enormity of what she feels?
As for social media (and I was thinking about this too!), I think she’d hate it, especially with how doctored and prevelant photos and bland, short captions are. You lose a lot of the intimacy of a handwritten letter when you use social media, in my opinion.
I think Emily Dickinson would have been pretty off put by social media. Considering she did not like to be photographed I think she would be quite overwhelmed by it, understandably. I also think her focus on and love of nature would additionally make her adverse to screens.
When Dickinson says “I cannot deny myself the luxury of a minute or two with you” in her letter, I read that as her spending time with Sue in her imagination while writing to her. When you’re in love with someone just thinking of them makes you feel a certain way, which I think is why she says that writing is vain when she knows how to feel. The feeling she gets while writing to Sue is exponentially intensified when they’re together, and that’s something that cannot be conveyed through words on a page.
As for social media, I agree with the previous comments. I think Dickinson would have been chronically offline and strongly disagreed with the use of social media. On top of not wanting to be photographed, I can imagine she would also hate the fakeness of it all. Nothing is real on social media anymore and everybody just follows the same trends. There’s no individuality, and we know that Dickinson wasn’t one to conform. The only way I can see her using social media would be posting about her gardening, baking or latest reads.