Whom I have never found long; Since the mighty Autumn afternoonSo instead of getting to I left them in the ground. heaven at last, I’m going all along!Perhaps the start of these desires to be independent began in adolescence, says W. Martin: “Strong social pressure was put on young Dickinson during her adolescence to join the church. Her refusal to commit her soul to Christ meant that she had spurned a tradition honored by her family for several generations.”4 Karl Keller, a critic, has much to say about her religious views: “Her literary experience was not a religious experience, however, but merely a momentary mythologizing, brief, tentative, fanciful, provisional, a suspension.” 5Pressures increased as she resisted God. Several of her friends and neighbors who had been acknowledged during this time, repeatedly urged her “to accept Christ as her Savior.” The pressure put on her is evident in a letter she wrote to her close school friend Abiah Root on January 31, 1846: “I am far from being thoughtless on the subject of religion. I am continually putting off becoming a Christian. Evil voices lisp in my ear-There is yet time enough. Nine months later she confided to Abiah Root; I know not why, I that the world holds a predominant place in my affections. I don’t feel I could give up all for Christ, were I called to die.” 6 Ferlazzo explains Dickinson’s trials with belief and disbelief toward God by using her a poem to create better understanding: Since she permitted herself to experience the extremes of faith and of loss, her poetry records a great soul’s journey to understand its place in the universe. Dickinson’s major poetic method in dealing with religious subjects reflects the ...
