Emily Dickson

5 Pages 1300 Words

Elizabeth Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830 in the quiet community of Amherst, Massachusetts, the second daughter of Edward and Emily Norcross Dickinson. Emily, Austin (her older brother) and her younger sister Lavinia. They were nurtured in a quiet,
reserved family headed by their authoritative father Edward. Throughout Emily¡¯s life, her mother was not "emotionally
accessible," the absence of which might have caused some of Emily¡¯s eccentricity. Being rooted in the puritanical Massachusetts
of the 1800¡¯s, the Dickinson children were raised in the Christian tradition, and they were expected to take up their father¡¯s
religious beliefs and values without argument. Later in life, Emily would come to challenge these conventional religious viewpoints
of her father and the church, and the challenges she met with would later contribute to the strength of her poetry.

The Dickinson family was prominent in Amherst. In fact, Emily¡¯s grandfather, Samuel Fowler Dickinson, was one of the founders
of Amherst College, and her father served as lawyer and treasurer for the institution. Emily¡¯s father also served in powerful
positions on the General Court of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts State Senate, and the United States House of
Representatives. Unlike her father, Emily did not enjoy the popularity and excitement of public life in Amherst, and she began to
withdraw. Emily did not fit in with her father¡¯s religion in Amherst, and her father began to censor the books she read because of
their potential to draw her away from the faith.

Being the daughter of a prominent politician, Emily had the benefit of a good education and attended the Amherst Academy.
After her time at the academy, Emily left for the South Hadley Female Seminary (currently Mount Holyoke College) where she
started to blossom into a delicate young woman - "her eyes lovely auburn, soft and warm, her hair lay in rings of the...