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Ivy Nguyen P4
Book: A Loaded Gun: Emily Dickinson For the 21st Century
Publish year: 2016

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Emily was sent to her Aunts place and stayed there for while. She wrote many letters. Those letters were funny and really showed people her true self.

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Her family weren't very fond of each other. Her brother and father, except one brother, Austin. Emily was afraid of her own father, but she did everything for him even though her father didn't like her that much because of her intelligence.

"As much as she was frightened of her father, he must have been a little wary of her smoking intelligence and wit." (pg 20)

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Dickinson is self taught. She wrote poems about her family and gave her poems to her friends. Many people realized that she is more mature than she thinks. Most of her poems she wrote had riddles and deep meanings to them. Some can't figure out how she wrote some of her poems.

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Emily Dickinson was scared of her own father. And yet, she still cared for him. When she continued to write poems, she expressed her sadness and fear in her poems when she is writing about her own father.
"Two things I have lost with Childhood- the rapture of losing my shoe in the Mud and going Home barefoot, wading for Cardinal flowers and the mother reproof which was [for] more for my sake than her weary own for she frowned with a smile..." (Pg 62)

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Dickinson's Aunt Lavinia was a strange woman. She married her 1st cousin so she could keep her last name. She lost one of her children and isolate herself from family. She eventually died from Norcross disease.
Emily wrote this poem about her.
"'Mama' never forgets her birds-
Though in another tree.
She looks down just as often
And just as tenderly,
As her little mortal nest
With cunning care she wove-
If either of her 'sparrows fall,'
She notices 'above'" (pg 58)

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Emily Dickinson had struggled to find love in her younger years. She was pan-sexual, meaning, she loved anyone. It doesn't matter what gender they are, she loved people for their minds. Her first "love" Susan Gilbert was taken from her by her own brother.

"She was drawn to women and men with powerful minds.." (pg 22)
"She was in love with Susan Gilbert, however we may define that love"(22)

Any other sexuality besides heterosexual, is not accepted by everyone. And in Emily's time, it was horrible for someone to like the same gender. I don't think Emily being pan made an impact, but maybe it'll show some people that their favorite poet is pan.

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https://www.glaad.org/blog/what-pansexuality-4-pan-celebs-explain-their-own-words
This is an article that shows 4 more celebs that are pan and what they have to say about it. This might make some young teens or anyone feel more comfortable about themselves being pan.

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Many of the Dickinson weren't too fond of each other. Emily's father would be the general and would send everyone away to a certain point in the house and make them stay there. Emily wanted none of this and did things on her own, but angered her father. Since men lead the household, this was bad for Emily to do. She still lived in the same house as her father.

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Dickinson was different from other people. She grew up with a anthropomorphic mother, which apparently identified as a man. Even though her family wasn't the best to her, they were the reason why she wrote all her amazing poems. Especially her mother. If if wasn't for her mother, Dickinson wouldn't have wrote poems.
In a letter Emily Dickinson wrote, she said "I always ran Home to Awe when a child, of anything befell me. He as an awful Mother, but I liked him better than none." (pg 42)

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Ginger Villella and Allegra Kent ( I think Ginger is his first name. It was not mentioned in the book) was two amazing dancers. He was mentioned in the book because when they both danced, it reminded the writer of Emily with her writing. Inventive and controlled.
"... I felt that she had an instinctive poetry in these limbs. . . and I thought of Emily Dickinson, of her physic split, that perverse ability to be elsewhere within her poems." (pg 129

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Emily Dickinson didn't have a lot of people giving her feed back or publishing her work.
But 125 years ago, people started writing commentary and writing articles about her. Samuel G. Ward, a bank-writer, loved her poems.

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This is a slideshow of pictures of Allegra Kent dancing when she was younger:

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Allegra Kent, A glorious ballerina and artist

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Dickinson loved Susan Gilbert, but she married Dickinson's brother. For a while, she'd always hate being around Austin and his family. Though, she was close to Vinnie, one of Austin's daughter. Dickinson would walk around the house and look angry.

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As people know, Emily Dickinson isn't married to anyone. She's had many people take interest in her though. Madelyn Krims and her husband, Harold, was attracted to her. The both of them did some,, sexual things with her. Some of her poems are pretty sexual. Example:
"Wild nights! Wild nights!
Were I with thee,
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!
Futile the winds
To a heart in port,—
Done with the compass,
Done with the chart.
Rowing in Eden!
Ah! the sea!
Might I but moor
To-night in thee!" (Wild Nights! Wild Nights pg 136)

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Throughout Emily's life, Susan Gilbert was the only person she fell in love with. But her family member are truly evil. Her brother Austin Dickinson married Susan and one of her friends, Kate Anthon (She was also a poet) kissed Susan on the cheek. Kate ended up falling in love Emily. Austin and Sue started liking Kate. (Emily's life is messed up, especially the love life she doesn't have)
". . . Austin and Sue at the time, fell in lobe with 'Mrs. Kate' ...But Kate wasn't really interested in Mr. Sam. A certain frekled-face poet appealed to her much more.." (pg 109)

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This is a video of Andrienne Rich reading her own poem. "Diving into the wreck"

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Adrienne Rich reads Diving into the Wreck

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In most of Dickinson's poems, she talks about her feelings and describes them through nature. Many people have been fascinated by her poems. Many say she got a "virus" that Shakespeare had. They wrote amazing pieces and everyone would compare those two.
"that language find certain people people and lives through them, almost the way a virusby finding a host, I think language lives by finding hosts. . . . It found a way to live in Shakespeare. " (pg 37)

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Marta Werner wrote books about Dickinson and Charyn mentioned her because he said that her books helps other understand the figurative language of Emily Dickinson.
"The defiant one, such as Marta Werner match fire with fire, as if some of their own sparks will bring us a little closer to Dickinson-language..." (pg164)

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In 1864, it was the reelection of Lincoln. During this election, Dickinson wrote letter to her friends about the whole election, while she was at Cambridge boardinghouse.
She wrote "The drums keep on for the still man... And not another word about Lincoln in her letters.." (pg170)

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Werner dug up letters written by Emily Dickinson and helped us all understand Emily as a person.

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Marta L. Werner is the foremost scholar of Dickinson's late work and the editor of Emily Dickinson's Open Folios and Radical Scatters: An Electronic Archive of Emily Dickinson's Late Fragments and Related Texts.

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Marta L. Werner is the foremost scholar of Dickinson's late work and the editor of Emily Dickinson's Open Folios and Radical Scatters: An Electronic Archive of Emily Dickinson's Late Fragments and Related Texts.

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An article about Lincoln's reelection

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President Lincoln's Reelection

Despite progress in the war, Lincoln and most political pundits were convinced that he would lose his bid for reelection in 1864. The country was war weary and the Democratic Party's nominee, George McClellan, was likely to negotiate a peace treaty with the Confederacy if elected.

Lincoln's colleagues within the Republican Party also had doubts about his reelection. In February 1864 newspapers printed a letter by Senator Samuel C. Pomeroy in which he argued that Lincoln could not win reelection and advocated nominating Salmon P. Chase for president. on Pomeroy circular for a series of pertinent letters.

By August, the outlook was so grim that Thurlow Weed wrote William H. Seward, "Ten or eleven days since, I told Mr Lincoln that his re-election was an impossibity.... The People are wild for Peace. They are told that the President will only listen to terms of Peace on condition Slavery be 'abandoned.'" on reelection 1864 for letters expressing contemporary opinions about Lincoln's reelection, including a letter by an opposer of Lincoln, J. W. Alden, who enclosed a list of " Ten Reasons why Abraham Lincoln should not be elected President of the United States a second term."

Why do you think so many northerners suspected that Lincoln was unwilling to establish peace without destroying slavery? Do you think Lincoln's statements or policies warranted such suspicion?

Do you agree or disagree with the ten reasons why Lincoln should not be reelected? How would you argue for or against these reasons? What evidence would you use to support your argument?

Many people agreed with Weed's assessment of public opinion and pressured Lincoln to attempt peace negotiations. on peace negotiations 1864 for discussions of the option and an attempt at negotiations at Niagara Falls. In a letter written to Lincoln on August 22, 1864, the New York Times editor, Henry J. Raymond advocated making a proffer of peace to President Davis "on the sole condition of acknowledging the supremacy of the Constitution, - all other questions to be settled in convention of the people of all the States:"

"If the proffer were accepted (which I presume it would not be,) the country would never consent to place the practical execution of its details in any but loyal hands, and in those we should be safe.

If it should be rejected, (as it would be,) it would plant seeds of disaffection in the South, dispel all the delusions about peace that previal in the North, silence the clamorous & damaging falsehoods of the opposition, take the wind completely out of the sails of the Chicago craft, reconcile public sentiment to the War, the draft, & the tax as inevitable necessities, and unite the North as nothing since firing on Fort Sumter has hitherto done."

From " Henry J. Raymond to Abraham Lincoln, August 22, 1864 (Political affairs)," Page 4.

According to Raymond, why would making an offer of peace be a sure-fire way of helping Lincoln's reelection?

Do you think that negotiating peace in order to get reelected would have been ethical? Why or why not?

Despite doubts within the Party, Lincoln won the Republican nomination. Nevertheless, he feared he had no chance of winning the election. He also feared that as President, McClellan would negotiate a settlement with the Confederacy that would allow the South to maintain the institution of slavery. On August 23, Lincoln wrote and sealed a memorandum, which he then asked his cabinet to endorse, not knowing the contents. After winning the election in November, Lincoln revealed to his cabinet that the memorandum pledged his cooperation with the president-elect for the sake of the nation.

Anticipating McClellan's election, Lincoln also asked Frederick Douglass to draft a plan for helping as many slaves as possible to escape from the South before the November election. Douglass submitted the plan on August 29, 1864, but it was never implemented because Lincoln's prospects for reelection soon improved with the capture of Atlanta and with General John C. Fremont's withdrawal from the presidential campaign.

What do Lincoln's memorandum and request for a plan from Frederick Douglass suggest about his character and values?

On March 4, 1865, Lincoln gave his second inaugural address at the Capitol. A on inauguration 1865 yields only a few items, including a program for the inauguration ceremony, an invitation to the inaugural ball, and a letter from Salmon P. Chase to Mrs. Lincoln. Chase sent Mrs. Lincoln the bible that her husband kissed in taking the oath of office, writing:

"I hope the Sacred Book will be to you an acceptible souvenir of a memorable day; and I most earnestly pray Him, by whose Inspiration it was given, that the beautiful SunShine which just at the time the oath was taken dispersed the clouds that had previously darkened the sky may prove an auspicious one of the dispersion of the clouds of war and the restoration of the clear sunlight of prosperous peace under the wise & just administration of him who took it."

From " Salmon P. Chase to Mary Todd Lincoln, March 4, 1865
(Sends Bible kissed by Lincoln at Inauguration; endorsed by Abraham Lincoln)."

Less than two months later, and only five days after General Lee's surrender, on the evening of April 14, Lincoln was fatally wounded while attending a performance at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. James Knox was seated in the second row of the orchestra seats just under the presidential box at the theater. In a letter to his father, dated April 15, 1865, Knox described the assassination:

"Just after the 3d Act, and before the scenes were shifted, a muffled pistol shot was heard, and a man sprang wildly from the national box, partially tearing down the flag, then shouting '"sic semper tyrannis", the south is avenged' with brandished dagger rushed across the stage and disappeared The whole theatre was paralyzed. ...The shrill cry of murder from Mrs Lincoln first roused the horrified audience, and in an instant the uproar was terrible. The silence of death was broken by shouts of 'kill him', 'hang him' and strong men wept, and cursed, and tore the seats in the impotence of their anger, while Mrs. Lincoln, on her knees uttered shriek after shriek at the feet of the dying President."

From " James S. Knox to Knox, April 15, 1865 (Eyewitness account of Lincoln's assassination)," Page 2.

on assassination for numerous letters warning Lincoln of the danger of assassination throughout his presidency. Learn more about the public reaction to Lincoln's assassination in the Collection Connections for The Alfred Whital Stern Collection of Lincolniana.

on assassination for numerous letters warning Lincoln of the danger of assassination throughout his presidency. Learn more about the public reaction to Lincoln's assassination by doing a search using the term assassination in The Alfred Whital Stern Collection of Lincolniana.

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History - Abraham Lincoln Papers - Collection Connections | Teacher Resources - Library of Congress

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Despite progress in the war, Lincoln and most political pundits were convinced that he would lose his bid for reelection in 1864. The country was war weary and the Democratic Party's nominee, George McClellan, was likely to negotiate a peace treaty with the Confederacy if elected.

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Everyone knows that Emily Dickinson had no husband or kids. She hid this because she was pan-sexual and this was NOT accepted in her era. That didn't stop people from feeling suspicious about her. Women who don't marry were looked upon. It was a title and Dickinson didn't care for it. She was looked down upon and was accused of being a witch. Crazy huh? Not Dickinson, but the people who thought she was some witch for not marrying is crazy. :P

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In the biography, Charyn mentioned a lot of other poets and compare or relate them to Emily Dickinson's situation. The poet, Andienne Rich was brought up because of her similar their writing is.
"...She was lashing at herself and other with her own language, writing about volcanoes, deserts rape, as Adrienne Rich reminds us in 'Vesuvius at Home', about madness, suicide, murder, angels, wild beast, the end of the world, and the tender violence of love and hate."  (pg 144)

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At the end of her life, she was gained the title of a poet. She is now considered one of the best American poets. On May 15 1886, Dickinson died because of Bright's disease.