On Emily and Solitude

I was (and still am) trying to wrap my brain around this idea of spinsterhood. When the idea of spinsterhood existing in my own world at the mere age of twenty-two came to me, at first it was comical, because when one hears the word spinster, this image usually comes to mind:

  There seems to be a stigma built around the concept, that stigma consisting of women who are lonely, shriveled, haggardly, pitied, own many cats, are hunched over and creeping, etc.  When I began using this word in passing conversation, trying to rouse the idea with friends and acquaintances, I was surprised to learn that a handful of people weren’t vaguely familiar with the term. When describing this lifestyle, they immediately became familiar with the term, and most retorted oh! An old hag! The concept has seemingly become fictionalized. We only see extremities of spinsterhood characteristics in stories—the most prominent in my mind is Faulkner’s Emily in A Rose for Emily. But this can’t be what represents spinsterhood, a women living in her old colonel father’s house, isolating herself from society and hoarding a dead body of a man she sleeps with every night. Many negative connotations have been constructed, so I’ve been racking my little brain about how to glorify this idea of women remaining in solitude for the span of their life. I wanted to break this fictional element that has attached itself to my current fascination. I turned to my literature (where the fictionalizing began) and started musing on the author’s motivation in creating these characters. I then looked up quotes, hoping someone else’s brilliant thought would give birth to some sort of epiphany—rather give me some sort of guidance to glorifying this lifestyle of solitary women. Here are a few quotes that I stumbled upon:

 “The trouble is not that I am single and likely to stay single, but that I am lonely and likely to stay lonely.”—Charlotte Bronte

            Okay, so this particular quote wasn’t so inspiring, but it captures the fear that has been derived from spinsterhood. It does recognize that being singular is not what is feared, but being lonely. No dependency on another is needed.

“Better die an old maid, sister, than marry the wrong man.”—Billy Sunday

            This one was a bit more comforting…

“Without a doubt... the worst part of being a single woman was having to take care of your own car.”—Lisa Kleypas

            This one was just simply humorous.

And then I stumbled upon this little gem:

“She could become a spinster, like Emily Dickinson, writing poems full of dashes and brilliance, and never gaining weight.”—Jeffrey Eugenides

This spurred some encouragement and turned me away from fictional characters that portrayed all the haggardly elements of spinsterhood and pointed me toward a real woman who represented lovely qualities, despite her solitude: Miss Emily Dickinson—thank you Jeffrey.

Meet poet and brilliant Emily Dickinson:

Emily lived in Amherst, Massachusetts where she lived reclusively and wrote beautiful, stopping poetry. None of her poetry was published until after her death; her sister founds hundreds of poems and they began being published after 1860—they sold rather well. Dickinson never married and slowly began to withdraw from society. Her quiet life was not seen as morose or pitied, it was infused with creative energy as she wrote one brilliant poem after another.

Here is a link to an article with further details on how her hermitary affected her work:

http://www.hermitary.com/articles/dickinson.html

On looking at Emily’s solitary life and on looking at her work produced from this solitude, it gave me satisfaction and hope for those who also share in this solitude. One does not need to be wrinkly with whiskers poking from their chin, or surrounded by wailing felines. One can be imaginative, creative—influential—despite their solitude, hell, solitude may help spur some of that creative energy—it did for Emily. If there are those who are shrowded with doubt within their solitude, do not let the stigma that society has created around spinsterhood define you. You are not haggardly, you are not “of no use,” you are not truly alone. Look at others who have impressed their ideas and imagination on life. Something lovely can be born from solitude. Thankfully, Emily Dickinson aided me in my quest to glorify this “lonely” life we call spinsterhood.