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Rachael Taylor
Dr. Scanlon
Short Paper, option a
13 February 2011
Permeability of Meaning in Poem #552
Dickinson is a writer of riddles; her poems seem simple, though she creates a false sense
of easy readability through words’ multiple meanings and alternate possibilities. Under those
false layers, the poems are in fact saying something much more complex. Her poem, number
552, examines the permeability of life, the process of death and the liminal quality of the body
both on a surface level, and also on a deeper level. Despite the fact that this poem is largely
about the process of death, Dickinson does not mention it by name. The first half of the poem
addresses death in terms of nature, and that death is part of the natural progression of life. The
end of the second stanza is a transition toward society’s view of death, man’s place in the
presence of God, and what dying actually is, which Dickinson contemplates in the subsequent
stanzas. Four stanzas form the poem, with a turn taking place at the end of the second stanza.
The first two stanzas set the reader up to understand death as natural and inevitable in life
as “Pain’s Successor”. (l. 3) Dickinson leads the reader to believe that death comes “More
imminent than Pain–” (2) meaning that death is a more threatening and real presence. She
describes death as “drowsiness” (5) that “Envelopes Consciousness– /As mists– obliterate a
Crag.” (7-8) Her use of the term drowsiness implies that death seems like nothing more than
going to sleep, a natural occurrence in life. She creates the idea that death thoroughly takes over
life, blots it out, and “obliterates” it. Though, her description of life as a “Crag”, a rough, steep
rock cannot be overlooked. Dickinson could have compared death to how mist obliterated a
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meadow, but she instead chose a crag, which prompts the reader to imagine the rougher qualities
of life. If she had created the metaphor of the meadow that is life being blotted out, it would
have lent a much more nostalgic tone to the poem. A crag is not sweet in any way, but dry,
cracked and hard, and it is in this version of life from which “Languor” (1) fades.
Dickinson complicates death in the third stanza, with the introduction of man’s role in
death, and later the introduction of man’s standing in comparison to a potential God figure. The
character, “Surgeon” allows for the confusion of pronouns with other characters and the presence
of someone “Mightier”. (14) Dickinson describes the surgeon’s ability to save the patient as
“late,” (13) and that the body has gone too far to be saved. At the turn in the third stanza, when
referencing the surgeon, Dickinson states that he “does not blanch– at pain–” (9) though later if
he learns that “it ceased to feel–” (11) that no amount of skill he has will save the patient from
death. Dickinson’s use of the word blanch, with its multiple meanings of to whiten, balk and to
make empty, gives the line leeway for interpretation. It could be read as the surgeon not balking
or his countenance whitening in the face of pain, though if read with the meaning to make empty,
the line reads that the surgeon is not the one who has power to empty the pain from a person’s
body, that pain is grave and “imminent”. (2) The next line refers to the surgeon’s “Habit” (10) as
“severe–”. (10) His habit can be read as simply the association of impending death from his
doctor’s coat, or his physical state as determined by exterior circumstances, which in this case is
the presence of pain and eventually death.
In the third stanza, Dickinson describes the body as a “Creature”, (12) which can be read
as any being besides a Creator. Creature could also imply “everything not self-existent,” which
could be read as a dehumanization of the body. This implies that the traits that cumulated the
person have left– all that is left is the life leaving the body, and that the body has “ceased to
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feel”. (11) Once the body as “ceased to feel” (11) it can be understood that the person is dead,
and no longer inhabiting the body. In the prior line, Dickinson refers to the creature as “it” (11)
rather than giving it a sex identifiable pronoun. The stripping of gender further dehumanizes the
term “Creature” (12) and could possibly lend to a more sterile reading of the poem. Though
“Creature” also opens room for a creator. Despite this poem’s death centered theme, the absence
of the word itself cannot be an accident, but instead a layer of the riddle.
Another portal of interpretation for this poem is punctuation. The dash is the primary
type of punctuation used in this poem, though Dickinson incorporates a period once at the end of
the second stanza. The period placed at the end of “obliterate a Crag.” (8) marks the end of the
nature-death metaphor. The sparseness of periods further complicates meaning, since the
sentence is not used as a primary meaning making structure, rather meanings are bookended
within dashes, which allow meaning to seep from line to line. Meaning can also be derived
though the units of line breaks, though the dashes rather than complete end-stopped lines, do not
give definite ending points to ideas and allow meaning to bleed through to the subsequent lines.
The bleeding of meaning allows for wavering of interpretation, and escalates the importance of
the layered definitions of words. The only sentence in the poem encompasses the first two
stanzas. The period is a fulcrum, the place of the turn, and a hard divide between the two halves
of the poem.
In the third stanza, Dickinson introduces the idea of man’s ability to stop death through
the introduction of the surgeon. These pivotal lines connote Dickinson’s views on man’s ability
to preserve life and his place in a greater world. In the final stanza, Dickinson’s refusal of the
sentence creates several meanings and eerie slippages. She writes, “A Mightier than He–/ Has
ministered before Him–” (14-15) The “He” could refer back to the “Soul” from the first stanza,
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the surgeon, or the dying creature. Though, the quality that all the potential he’s have in
common is that they are all logically beneath the presence of something “Mightier.” (14) Given
Dickinson’s biography, the “Mightier” (13) presence may be deduced as God, though Dickinson
does explicitly state it is so. In the previous stanza, Dickinson’s reference to the dying person as
“Creature” (7) leaves room for a Creator, in essence, she is indirectly opening space for God in
her poem. Another support for her opening space for God in the third stanza is the alternate
word for “lying.” The line “The Creature lying there–” (12) may imply that the creature is dead,
and in repose, though in Franklin’s edition of her poems, he includes Dickinson’s alternate word
“going” as a replacement for “lying”. The line, “The Creature going there–” has a much
different connotation than the previous version. The word going implies the creature’s
movement beyond death. The phrase “lying there” (12) lends to the reading that the creature is
lying over there, while the phrase “going there” opens possibility for the idea of the location of
“there”. Dickinson does not state where exactly “there” is, though with the alternate word
“going”, one may read “there” as heaven. In connection with the presence of someone “Mightier
than He” (14) the alternate word going, lends a more uplifting reading to the poem.
The final line, “There’s no Vitality” (16) leaves the poem open for interpretation. The
poem ends with no punctuation, thus, opening possibility. Even the presence of a dash at the end
of the final line would have closed the poem more solidly. Though the lack of period in the final
line heightens the importance of the period at the end of the second stanza. Dickinson feels that
the ideas cumulated on death and nature in the first and second stanzas merit finality through a
period, though in the final stanzas nothing can be quite defined. The lack of period may be
symbolic for her views of death as not being final for the soul. The absence of the period,
similarly to the absence of the word death, is another layer to Dickinson’s riddle. Its absence,
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though, creates an opening where poems usually close, and is the final punch of Dickinson’s
riddle of death.