Soul+Selects+it's+own+Society

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The Soul selects her own Society — Then — shuts the Door — To her divine Majority — Present no more —

Unmoved — she notes the Chariots — pausing — At her low Gate — Unmoved — an Emperor be kneeling Upon her Mat —

I've known her — from an ample nation — Choose One — Then — close the Valves of her attention — Like Stone —

Today in class, we got seperated into groups of two to decipher one of Emily Dickinson's poems. My partner and I were assigned to break apart The Soul Selects her own Society. This poem is rather short but this is the summary that we came up with: People pick their own society and they are suddenly stubborn about it. It's basically saying that that person's society becomes the only right way to be and to live life. Another society is "knocking at Dickonson's door" and asking to //change// her society and her views based upon the society (whatever that may be) that she has chosen. Based on the information given in stanzas one and two, we realize that she knows that this is not the way that society is "run" and that you cannot just change societies because someone asks you to. The only bad thing that we get out of this is that she's sort of saying that a person should just chose a society and ignore all the others. All or pretty much most people are like this: they chose a society based upon their beliefs, but then they think that their society is the only right way. They don't stop to respect or sonsider any other society except their own.
 * Stanza 1 (lines 1-4)**
 * Stanza 2 (lines 5-8)**
 * Stanza 3 (lines 9-12)**
 * Overall Summary**

The only hard words or phrases that we encountered was in line two when Dickinson says "then shuts the Door-" The thing that we essentially do not understand is why Door is capatalized. Is it like a special word or something. Overall, I really liked this poem. The more we do with breaking down her poems, the better I understand them. **EWe** (DON'T FORGET YOUR TILDES.1203081674)

I thought that this poem has alot of meaning to it to being as short as it does. What i feel he first stanza means is that people naturally select niches and their souls settle there. Like you really cannot change who you are and that you might as well accept it because it isn't going to change and that you are going to be around people your soul chooses. Example; Your the new kid at school, you go to lunch, and you don't know one person in the lunch room. You look around and see a group of promising people, and you go and sit down. These people you are looking at the table turn out to be your best friends for life. This is what dickinson is talking abput, your soul places you where you need to be. Almost like natural selection.

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I think that when Dickinson talks about how society selects it's own soul, she is half true and half untrue to me. I think that in a strong way, we do selct who we are friends with, and how we act around other people. I think that this statement can be untrue though because society doesn't select who you are. One quote that reminds me of this is that "people don't tell you who you are...you tell them." I think that this quote is completely true because we control who we are. I think that Dickinson was selfish in this poem by saying that she closed the door on society, that's not saying that society selects the soul, she chose to act the way she has around society and that affected how she saw the rest of the world. 1203657478ape2

This was a really cool poem. I think that the first stanza was talking about how we choose everything for ourself. Like you accept what you want and you shut out things that you don't want in your life. The second stanza could be about someone trying to change the person in the poems view on society. I think that in the third stanza she is accepting that the way she thinks society is isn't exactly the right way. Someone can try to change the way that you view society but only you have the power to change your own views. This poem has taught me that people will not always view things the same way I do, and they can try to change what I believe, but in the end only I can change what I feel and believe. 1203868889

I really liked this poem. In the first stanza Dickinson says our soul selects its own society, letting in who we want and when we want, then abrubtly shuts the door. She refuses to let any one in, even if an emperor be kneeling upon her mat. The 3rd stanza explains how the real harshness of the Soul, even from "an ample nation of people", she wants to settle on one single person to include, then she closes the "valves of her attention", like stone. Overall, this was a very interesting poem. I really liked it because I can understand where Dickinson is coming from, if you interpret this poem in our day and age you can see it as people telling you "you dont have to be friends with everyone, just choose who you want to be with." 1203870373

This poem is a good work of art. Not only is it a creative piece it’s a truthful and utmost necessary piece of work. To break down the poem into what everything means it would be something like this in my eyes. The soul selects its own world, it makes what it wants of things, it knows was right and off of that it creates its very own definition of what it is that is unique to only you. It shuts the door and creates a barrio that no one can get into a change unless of course you decide to change it by new knowledge etc. Anyone can try and change it but its moral things, things that don’t change for fame or fortune, things that you stand behind because if you didn’t you would reject your physical being. Its set in stone and its important that you keep it true to you. That is deep stuff but it is also very true and I do believe its stuff you don’t mess with. 1203985731

I liked this poem because it talked about how people pick their own way of life. For example, even if you are given power you don't have to be mean to people because they are lower than you in the social class. You can be whoever or whatever you want to be and no one can tell you otherwise. Your soul lets you make your own choices. Your soul gives you free will to do whatever you want, however what you want is not always the right decision.

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this poem seemed like it was really ment for woman. To help woman become more independent. Because back in her day woman didnt have very many rights and if they did there was somthing wrong. I liked this poem a lot, it really opened a new way of thinking. Thinking and being indepentdent. This poem is tell people that you control your own life and you choose what to do with it. I liked how she didnt just use a real person in her poem and used a soul instead. 1203992272

I think i see what ED is trying to say here but i can't agree at all. She is saying that once you decide who you are you will never let anyone change you. but i cant agree with that at all. People never stay the same, at least the people i know, their ideas and personalities are constantly changing i always thought that was just the nature of human beings. And most of the time these people are changing their ideas because someone said it or believes it. I think its ridiculous for her to say something like this it makes absoulutly no sense. But i guess she could be talking about a point in your life where everything changes and you really do know who you are. But my first impression was that everyone is like this always and thats just not true. Unless she was just a very remarkable person who never changed her mind. but BRTOM did say she had no friends so i guess she never saw anyone change their minds. 1204071140

I considered that this poem has a lot of importance to it. What I felt the first stanza means is that we do not select the soul, but the soul selects us. It chooses and shuts the door so no other soul can steal us. The second stanza means in my opinion is that someone is asking the emperor to change; only the soul doesn’t want to. It almost seems like in the third stanza the souls choosing who they want. But what I wonder is are they talking about souls or is Emily Dickinson comparing something to a soul. 1204080602 ___ I really enjoyed reading this peom. It stood out the most to me and I felt that I understood it more than any of the others. I agree with GKe when he said that he was surprised at how much the poem said even though it was kind of short. Emily Dickinson put alot of description into those few stanzas. After reading it a few times I understood how the poem could be taken as a love poem but at first I just related it to how the soul acts towards people in general and not just the one that it's in love with. But it does make more sense when you think of it as a love poem and I'm glad Br.Ton brought it up to us like that because without him saying it I probably wouldn't have noticed. 1204147533

This poem was very interesting, it caught my attention. I think that in the first stanza it is saying how we chose what we are going to do ourselves even though they may not be the best ones we still do chose.You are the boss of what you chose from not anyone else it all on you, people make mistakes sometimes and that is understandable too. In the next stanza it is like someone trying to persuade you to follow their thoughts on society. The last stanza she is saying how maybe her way of looking at society is the wrong way and she is kind of leaning toward the other side of things. There will always be people out there who will try to persuade you to do something. Some are good and others are not so good and this is where the through process comes in to decide if it is good to do it or not. Some decisions can be live changing so be careful with your decisions but never look back once you make them. 1204172589

I don't get this poem. She says we don't select a soul, but the soul selects us. Neither is true. There inn't any selection process with souls-they don get selected and they don't get to be selected. We are born with a soul- that's it's nature. What we do with it may cause it to change, from a kind soul, a bad soul.That choice, I guess is a selection process. But that doesn' t involve selecting the sould your born with, it ahs to dowith taking your soul down the correst path, where the door to the soul are open to all good people.Such is the true nature of souls and the selections made in life. 1204261318

I think this in this certain poem it was a lot easier to just find the overall meaning of the poem to know what its talking about instead of going through each stanza one at a time. So basically my thoughts on this poem are that she is saying your born the way you are and you can only change that so much. The way you are and live somewhat tells you the group you will be in or the people you will be friends with. For example in high school if you have been athletic your whole life and in high school your a football player then your probably going to be friends with all the other football players just as it is with kids in band or theater. Some people say that this is just stereotyping and your shouldn't do that. But also its really true and it happens all the time. The one line that i found really interesting was the line that said " then shuts the door" and "present no more" These lines made me think of how people don't like accepting other into their "cliques" or tend to just stay with their own friends. 1204685607