First Stanza The Narrator example essay topic

"A Narrow Fellow In The Grass' Essay", A Narrow Fellow In The Grass' Geoffrey Tobey Shelley Rees English 1320 March 8, 2000 Emily Dickinson?'s? A Narrow Fellow in the Grass? A long time ago, before women had many of the rights that they do now, an author wrote a series of poems that shocked the public. This poem startled the readers when they found out that the author of this poem was a woman. At the time that? 986? was written women were supposed to remain abstinent for the man who was to marry them when they were older.

When Emily wrote this poem she was a virgin; she even wore white clothes. The poem? 986? utilizes Freudian imagery and stages of development to dramatize a female perspective on sexuality. When you read this poem for the first time it is easily noticeable the sexual content that is provided for the reader to interpret.

Take the first stanza, A narrow Fellow in the Grass Occasionally rides? You may have met Him? did you not His notice sudden is? When looking at the first stanza the narrator is stating that the? Fellow? is a penis, and that you might or might not have met it, or had an encounter with a penis.

Also, in imagery male genitalia is signified by animate creatures. Then at the end of the stanza the narrator states that something is noticed suddenly, and that is in the second stanza. Since the Narrator has introduced you to the male organ, it is only fitting that she does the same for the female. The example of this is in the fifth line, first line of the second stanza, when it says, ? The Grass divides as with a Comb– .? If you were to visualize looking at the clitoris, the pubic hair sometimes tends to divide at the opening, as if it were to be brushed with a comb.

Then the poem goes into saying that a? spotted shaft, ? penis, is seen and? ... closes at your feet / And opens further on? -? (7-8). Here it is say that for the woman, if looking down on the penis it disappears into the vagina and will eventually come back out somewhere else. Now in the third stanza the narrator does something really strange. The narrator starts to talk as if he / she were to be a boy.

In this stanza, it goes into one of the three stages that Sigmund Freud put together. Freud came up with three stages that a person goes through in his / her lifetime. The particular stage that is in reference here is the? Phallic? stage. In the phallic stage you have already passed the?

Oral? stage, where you put things in your mouth, and the? Anal? stage, where you get excitement for going to the bathroom for the first time. In the? Phallic? stage you are now seeking genital arousal. There is a perfect example of this stage in the twelfth to the sixteenth line when is says; I more than once at Noon Have passed, I thought, a Whip lash Unbraiding in the Sun When stooping to secure it It Wrinkled, and was gone– . A Whip lash plant is a type of plant that when it has sufficient sunlight hitting it, the flower will bloom, and when the light and heat are gone it closes.

Same can go for the penis but whenever it is warm, the skin is going to be looser and the penis will be bigger. And when you go to take hold of the plant, or the penis, you can block that sunlight or that heat that is keeping it blossomed. The penis will wrinkle and somewhat disappear. All of this is related to the?

Phallic? stage because this can be interpreted as masturbation. The Looking at it in that sense, the? Boggy Acre? can be used as swampy, marshy, wet; and when masturbating you need lubrication. The mar shyness, or wetness can also be related to female wetness. Then in the fourth and fifth stanzas the narrator shifts back to being his / herself and states that they are friendly with most of? Nature's People, ? but that every time that she sees, or meets this?

Fellow? she gets chills down her spine, by either fear or excitement. Even if she was to be with somebody, or by herself. Now in poetry, the male organ is usually always represented as a snake, so the narrator is stating that he / she is scared to make an encounter with the snake. So Emily could also be stating that she is a virgin, maybe to save her from being persecuted as a whore, but we don? t know that.

Now if you were to be a person and you had read this poem, you too would be able to notice the sexual content that is present in this poem. Even if you might not have seen it the first time around, the material is there. And Freud can pick out some of the basic things, and with the help of imagery it is easy to see the sexual content and analyze their meanings.