A Study On The Metaphor Of Gender Imagery In Emily Dickinson’s Nature Poetry

Emily Dickinson（1830-1886）,a famous 19th century American poetess,is regarded as the pioneer of the Imagist School in the early 20th century.Emily Dickinson writes about 1,800 poems in her lifetime,almost a third of which deal with nature because of the solitude she has lived in since the age of twenty-five,the rich natural image carries her many thoughts and feelings.Emily Dickinson is born into a puritan family of America in 19^th century.In the context of the patriarchal oppression and the control of puritanical education,the seed of female gender awareness is born in the soil of her free thought.Dickinson,who loves poetry,writes a number of verses to express women‘s desire for freedom and equality under the oppression of a patriarchal society.Thus,a metaphorical analysis of his nature poems can help us better understand Emily Dickinson‘s gender awareness and her poetry.After combing the previous research literature,the author finds that the domestic research on Dickinson‘s natural poetry mainly focuses on ecological criticism,ecological feminism and the contradictory views in natural poetry.In the studies abroad,in addition to ecology,there are also people who study Dickinson’s natural poetry and art,the abnormalities in natural poetry,and the female awareness in flowers.It is relatively rare to analyze the gender imagery in her natural poetry from the perspective of metaphor.Therefore,this thesis takes Emily Dickinson‘s nature poetry as the main research object,and classifies the imagery in nature poetry into three categories:plant imagery,animal imagery and other imagery.Then,under the guidance of feminist criticism and metaphor theory,the author analyzes these imageries and explores the gender awareness in Emily Dickinson‘s nature poems.Through analysis,this paper finds that Emily Dickinson used a large number of natural imagery in her poems to metaphor the unequal relationship between men and women,and also that women were always oppressed in the patriarchal society in the 19th century.Emily Dickinson uses these common natural imageries to express her resistance to oppression and her desire for women‘s freedom.Through the discussion of the gender consciousness of such a special 19th century poetess,this paper provides a reference value for readers to better understand Dickinson and her natural poetry,and makes a new supplement on the study of Dickinson’s natural poetry.At the same time,this study aims to inspire contemporary women to pay more attention to self-awareness and think about the current situation of the relationship between men and women.