In her poem entitled “Eden is that old-fashioned House,” Emily Dickinson offers us a different, more relatable view of the well-known story of Adam and Eve. To begin, I will dissect the poem itself to demonstrate its meaning with respect to the biblical tale and later I will, using Dickinson’s wording, connect such meaning to my own life.
An “old-fashioned House” is a dwelling that existed before you did, a house that you know well and a house of safety, security and comfort (Dickinson, 1). Eden is all of these things for Adam and Eve as God placed them there and they had never left it. “There he put man whom he had formed;” man was born into Eden (Genesis 2:8). The characteristic feature of a home “we dwell in everyday” from the moment we are born, is that we do not know we live there—we do not know of our home’s existence—until we leave it (Dickinson, 3). “Eden is that old-fashioned House:” a house of warmth and security, but also innocence. We do not “[suspect] our abode/Until we drive away” (Dickinson, 3-4). Similarly, we do not know we are innocent until we are no longer innocent. When the serpent manipulates Eve to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and Adam eats as well, they disobey God. As consequence, God “dr[ives] out the man” and Adam and Eve’s newly-opened eyes realize the nirvana they had just left (Genesis 3:24).
Dickinson then extends the meaning of being driven out of Eden in terms of the future. She ascertains that though we may “[look] back [on] the Day/We sauntered from the Door,” we are “unconscious” of never again finding the same Eden we once knew (Dickinson, 5-7). Her use of the word “sauntered” suggests the careless, fallible, human curiosity that eventually became the cause of Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the garden. And, Adam and Eve “sauntered” out not knowing that if ever they were to return, they would “discover it no more,” or it would be changed in some way (Dickinson, 8). Dickinson shows us the meaning of the story of Adam and Eve’s expulsion from Eden: that one only knows of the existence of home and innocence when one leaves home. And, one cannot go back to the same home he or she once knew.
My home in Woodbridge, Connecticut is the home I was born into. It is the home I “dwell in everyday,” and although I suppose it is architecturally speaking a contemporary house, I would call it my “old-fashioned House” because it represents the same things for me as Eden did for Adam and Eve: safety, warmth, and security (Dickinson, 1-2). I could recite my address and phone number to you when I was three years old, then again I did not really know why my mother made me do that at the time.
When I was eleven years old I went away to a ballet summer intensive program in Florida for a month. I remember feeling old, mature, free, but also scared and small. In Florida, though I remember feeling scared I was able to “[look] back on the Day/[I] sauntered from the Door” and know that I had the promise of my home awaiting me four weeks later. It was only a month, after all, and I was only eleven. I still had a definite seven more years of living at 158 Peck Hill Road Woodbridge, CT to look forward to.
Now, six and a half years later, I know I am approaching the finish line. I do feel as though I have experienced what it is like to pseudo-“drive away” after going away on my own for many years now, but what looms in my mind is the permanence of this “driv[ing] away” I am about to experience [Dickinson, 4]. In accordance with Dickinson’s poem, and Adam and Eve’s expulsion, the ultimate departure from home is not something I can experience twice; therefore I really do not know what lies ahead for me. Thankfully, these months of college applications and discussions about future plans have prepared me for the actual act of “driv[ing] away” [Dickinson, 4]. I can’t know what it will be like until that first night I sleep in my dorm room, and to be honest I am beyond nervous. The idea of permanent change scares me to no end; that when I return I will “discover [true home] no more” (Dickinson, 8).
I would not say that I am scared of my mother turning my bedroom into a sewing room; that is not the change of which I am scared. But rather, I am anxious to find that home doesn’t really feel like home. My sister, having been in college for a few months now, came home for Thanksgiving to find her room had been turned upside down because of a recent carpet installment upstairs. She liked the carpet, but I think that change symbolized much bigger changes for her that she found when she returned.
Another aspect I am scared of is missing dancing with New England Ballet Company. I cannot remember the last September-December time period I spent not dancing in the Nutcracker. And the fact that I will not be dancing in it next year makes me nauseous and uneasy, because it is something I love and something I have done almost my entire life. I know that when I come home for winter break next year I will go and see the Nutcracker, for the first time in my life (rather than dance in it), and I know it will be hard for me to watch it having not been there for the entire rehearsal process, and having not spent every waking hour in that godforsaken studio sweating my arse off. I think I will be jealous, and I think I will be sad because I know I can never have the experiences I’m having right now (here we go production week 2011!) ever again. In a way, I am conscious of the fact that upon returning I will “discover [home] no more,” however I am completely unaware of what it will actually be like to come back to my “old-fashioned House” after beginning my life outside the gates of Eden.
