Emily Dickinson & Alice in Wonderland: The Fall & Consciousness

"And then a Plank in Reason, broke,

And I dropped down, and down - 

And hit a World, at every plunge,

And Finished knowing - then -"

- Emily Dickinson

Dickinson concludes this poem on sheet two of her sixteenth fascicle with a passage wherein she describes a "Plank in Reason" breaking before falling through a series of worlds and that this leads to her having "Finished knowing". This idea, I believe, is astonishing in its capacity to reveal meaning at multiple levels of analysis and inform our understanding not just of her work from a literary perspective, but in terms of the truths it states that are profoundly ingrained into our human psyche. This passage reminded me immediately of 'Alice in Wonderland' wherein the eponymous character famously falls down the rabbit hole, thus commencing her journey of discovery and at a deeper level, the emergence of her consciousness.

Although somewhat simplistic, it is widely accepted that Alice's fall down the rabbit hole is emblematic of a kind of philosophical quest for knowledge, even if it is undertaken inadvertently. Essentially, Alice must leave the normal or 'adult' world constricted by the laws of nature and an anthropocentric culture in order to discover true meaning and knowledge. I would argue that it is exactly this archetype that is articulated here by Dickinson as she completes her quest for knowledge through her unintended descent through a different world. The notion of this quest as being undertaken unwittingly is evidenced in the idea that the plank "broke" - evidently, this cannot be planned or designed, thus her falling is a process that begins contrary to her interests and desires. This in itself, is significant. It suggests perhaps that the path to enlightenment or truth as the highest value is one that requires hardship and self-sacrifice that may be accepted voluntarily (as we saw in the writings of Thoreau at Walden pond) or forced upon us seemingly at random, as is the case in Dickinson's poem and for Alice in Carroll's novel.

Furthermore, the idea that "Reason" itself must be broken in order for this journey to begin is somewhat ambiguous but equally relevant, I would argue. The first conclusion that seems logical to me is to identify human-defined "Reason" as a barrier to the sphere of enlightenment on a cosmic level (the idea of truth and its interactions with the cosmos is also dealt with by both Emerson & Thoreau). This is replicated in Alice's adventures wherein the laws of the world she knows, perhaps alternatively defined as "Reason" must be suspended or escaped in order for her journey of enlightenment to occur successfully.

I don't know what to make of these ideas exactly, but it's some idea and I think their persistence in the Western literary consciousness is a testimony to their capacity to articulate the truth.