Dare you see a Soul at the "White Heat"? : Analysis

At a first read, I found this poem very hard to understand because I wasn't familiar with ironwork and its tools. I realized that imagery plays a significant role in Emily Dickinson's, or poems in general because they help convey the central purpose and the overarching theme. The main components of the poem is the fire/heat within the forgery, the blacksmith and his/her tools, and the ore which goes through refinement through the hammering and the fire (the blaze). The first line of the the poem, "Dare you see a soul at the "White Heat", I feel sums up the entire poem because it expresses the process through which an ore (which I interpreted as symbolizing the soul" goes through a fire so hot that the fire turns into "white heat".  At the end of the whole ironwork process, the ore is refined to its highest value, therefore the soul is purified through the "white heat".

http://smithery.co/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/blacksmith.jpg

Here are some questions that helped me gain a further insight into the poem:

Is there an identifiable audience for the speaker?

I don't think there's an identifiable audience for the speaker in the poem because I interpreted the poem is written used as a means to express the speaker's journey and the hardships of her soul. Poetry is sometimes used as a form of therapy or trying to understand one's own life and all of the feelings they've dealt with. However, Dickinson could be writing the poem for others who relate to her own experience.

 What is the setting in place?

The setting of the poem primarily takes place inside a blacksmith's workshop to explain the process through which an ore is refined "until the designated light repudiate the forge".

Summarize the events of the poem.

The poem starts off with asking the reader whether or not you dare to see a soul at the "White Heat" and then transitions to the ironwork setting where the "vivid ore" will proceed to vanquish the heat of the flame and it will quiver from the forge. Once the ore has gone through the heat, it is refined with a hammer and once again with more heat until it has enough light in it to "repudiate" or fight against the forge.

Discuss the diction of the poem/ Point out and explain any symbols .

The use of the colors white and red contrast each other to represent the fire into different heat levels. Through religious interpretations, white could symbolize purity and red could symbolize bloodshed and hell-fire, or the forgery itself. The fire is described in many different components: heat, flame, and blaze. Heat indicates the actual temperature which refines the actual material of the metal. Flame, in my opinion, describes the physical appearance of the fire while the use of the word "blaze" indicates the violent movement of fire. Therefore, the heat, physical appearance and the movement of the fire in the forge all could describe the hell-fire which one's soul has to go through in order to reach the white heat and able fight against/repudiate the hell-fire.

Sula 67-85

Omens: Wind, Fire, and Death

Hannah's whole body is on fire as Sula watches with interest, Eva jumps through the window with her one leg to save her first-born, Eva is smothered with blood while she watches Hannah inevitably burn to death.

I found Hannah's death really unexpected because what are the chances that two characters in one novel would spend their last moments with fire devouring their flesh completely? In retrospect, I feel like I should have expected her death because of all the ominous signs especially her dream of wearing a red gown in her wedding. Taking a few steps back, Eva was recounting the number of "strange" things occurring recently starting off the wind that took the dampness out of the air instead of welcoming rain. Sula was acting up and the strangest events were Hannah's dream of a wedding in red bridal gown and when Hannah bends down to light the yard fire.

The "strange" events were presented almost in a chronological manner leading up to Hannah's clothes getting caught on fire and Eva attempting to rescue Hannah and her precious beauty. All of these events represent ominous signs of Hannah's death. I noticed how the wind/breeze in the previous chapters symbolized freedom and empowerment in relation to Nel and Sula but the symbol of wind took a dark turn embodying the destruction of Hannah's precious beauty.

 

"Eva mused over the perfection of judgment against her. She remembered the wedding dream and recalled that weddings always meant death. And the red gown, we that was the fire, as she should have known." (78)

What intrigues me even more is how Eva felt that her intuition and judgment went against her and that she should have been more conscientious of her daughter's dream. The statement "weddings always meant death" once again reflects her bitter experience with marriage and perhaps her marriage destroyed her once bright future. When Hannah mentioned that she was wearing a red bridal gown it striked me as odd because red was a bold color usually referencing blood and death. However in Hannah's dream, the red color represented her body being lit on fire.


Image : Katniss, the girl on fire, represented here as courageous. However Hannah's fire red gown symbolized the destruction of her beauty.