A narrow fellow in the grass by Emily Dickinson

Narrow Fellow

Emily Dickinson's "A Narrow Fellow in the Grass:" How focused reading of the poem central image and use of the word fellow shows the uncomfortable 'fellowship' we all share, with all members of the animal kingdom

One of the most central images of Western culture and literature is that of the evil serpent who threatens and tempts humanity. The serpent in such a reading is an alien beast, even the devil incarnate. This serpent has become a cliche, although the animal retains its power to frighten humans. The serpent tempted Adam and Eve, and even its literal incarnation has the ability to terrify a viewer by sight and to poison an unsuspecting ankle. Emily Dickinson's poem "A Narrow Fellow in the Grass" takes on this view of the serpent to suggest that even though she is afraid of snakes, she still acknowledges the fellowship or commonality between all human beings and animals.

The snake may be an unpleasant fellow, just as many human fellows might be narrow, unpleasant, and cold. Thus the poet sets herself the daunting task of making the description of this animal seem fresh, and frightening in a new, more human way. Like Blake's poem about the tiger, burning bright, Dickinson transforms the viewer's chance glimpse at a garden snake into something sinister because of the fellowship between humans and snakes. Thus Dickinson does not take the easy route of making the poem's subject more fearsome than it is, in reality. The snake of the poem does not speak, or seek to threaten her soul or even her life. She is simply afraid of its attitude and finds it distasteful. Thus the poet acknowledges her fellowship as a living being with the alien creature while still admitting the snake is not a living being she particularly likes, because of its silent and surprising nature, much as she would dislike a person of similar temperament. Thus, rather than a poem about the inherent evils of the snake or serpent, the poem is also a critique of what human beings find dislikable in the character of other humans as well as animals. The poem takes on the reflective tone, as the poet says of this chance visitor that she acknowledges fellow living kinship with, but not very willingly, given his narrow and mean qualities, and states that much like an unpleasant person, she would just as rather not see him around and about.

The first line of the poem gives the poem its name, and in actuality Dickinson seldom titled any of her poems, rather her later editors gave them their names. Most of Dickinson's poems bear the name of their first line, simply for the sake of identification. The line "A narrow fellow in the grass/Occasionally rides;" sets the foreboding tone but by making the snake anthropomorphic as a "fellow" yet one who gives an unpleasant surprise. By this designation of "fellow" Dickinson suggests that she is trying not to be prejudiced against this living being. "You may have met him, -- did you not,/His notice sudden is." She notes the alien presence even a common snake can have, with its suddenness and silence in the "meeting" on the part of the viewer, although this shock is not the intention of the fellow. The sense of the snake's strangeness is in the mind of the viewer, not the snake. Because of his nature and appearance, the snake cannot help but take the reader by surprise. To show this, and to give a verbal sense of the sensation, the inverted end of "notice sudden is" of the first stanza is designed to take the reader and the poet by unintentional surprise, like a jolt, mimicking the startling nature of seeing a green or brown snake in green or brown grass.

The poem's breaks at the end of the first stanza also shows that the poet wished to convey a sense of the poet's thought process, rather than on focusing on the nature of the snake. The snake's terror is in the surprise in the reader's mind, not necessary in the snake's own nature or intention. The description of the snake's movement has a strong "kinesthetic" quality to it, designed to show the reader why this animal causes human beings to fear and feel alienated from it. The reader must feel the poet's intake of break at the stanza break, as she suddenly sees the snake. (Montiero, 1992) "The adjective 'narrow' is hardly unusual, but welded to 'fellow' (which in this context is equally common), it takes on a visual-kinesthetic meaning. Visually, this noun-cum-attribute recreates, in a sense, the very movement of the snake as it 'rides' along the ground," before revealing itself at the poet's feet. (Montiero, 1992) The poet brings the reader into the moment of seeing the snake, creating a sense of unity between reader and poet, in their mutual shock.

It is interesting to note that although most of Dickinson's poems were not published in her lifetime, as they were too controversial in their use of rhyme and meter, this poem was one of the "handful of her poems" that did see the light of the public eye. "When 'A Narrow Fellow in the Grass'...one of Emily Dickinson's best known and most admired poems...was published without Dickinson's knowledge in the Springfield Daily Republican (Feb. 14, 1866), it was entitled 'The Snake.'" Unfortunately, the delight of figuring out the identity of the fellow was robbed from these early readers -- and also, it is important to note, Dickinson's clear determination to create a sense of oneness between herself and the snake as fellow beings, although not fellow beings of nature in temperamental harmony. (Montiero, 1992)

Dickinson also stresses 'fellowship,' between the narrow fellow and herself, not just between the reader and herself as an observer of the snake, thus to admit her own and the reader's prejudice against a fellow being. It is important to note in the original manuscript that not only was this poem not entitled "The Snake," but only bore the name "in the holograph manuscript: 'A narrow Fellow in the Grass.'" Idiosyncratic in her capitalization as always to stress certain words, the stress upon fellow or fellowship is significant. ("Emily Dickinson," Biography and Analysis, The Online Literature Library, 2005) Paul Bray has called Dickinson's sense of oneness or commonality with nature and the animal kingdom "mystical" in its communion, but it is equally possible to see her fellowship as part of a unique religion of 'oneness' between all members of the living animal kingdom, or simply an acknowledgement of the closeness of human beings in spirit to the natural world. (Bray, 1992) The snake is like a fellow the poet does not like, even if he is part of one's fellow species like a disagreeable human. The poet, reader, and the poem's subject are all fellow living dwellers upon the earth, just as the species of humanity comprises a variety of different temperaments.

From "early childhood Dickinson waged a rather desperate struggle to maintain psychic integrity against a spiritualized natural world that encroached upon her, [and] spoke to her," a world she saw herself as united with as a common dweller upon the earth. (Bray, 1992) To stress this common connection of all animals, including human animals, Dickinson, after anthropomorphizing the snake by calling it a "fellow," makes further use of common human objects to describe the non-human fellow. "The grass divides as with a comb," as when the snake's narrow body is seen to split its fronts, and "A spotted shaft is seen;" but before the viewer can react, the combing snake, "And then it closes at your feet/And opens further on," passing the viewer by but still leaving fear in the viewer's heart because of the coolness of the beast and its sense of remove.

The snake, of course, in some sense could be 'all snakes' in that this is a repeated visitation by the creature. Dickinson refers to every snake she has seen as the same fellow, remembering her first encounters with the reptile world. "He likes a boggy acre, /

A floor too cool for corn. / Yet when a child, and barefoot, / I more than once, at morn," And here the third stanza ends, again abruptly, as the viewer braces for a bite -- which does not come. Dickinson's childhood encounter with a snake, merely passed her by. Yet snakes have continued to surprise her throughout her life, as this 'same' fellow she might: "Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash/Unbraiding in the sun, --/When, stooping to secure it, / It wrinkled, and was gone." The snake seems sinister because it hides itself, yet when the poet as a child wished to apprehend it more closely it ran away, as if wishing to keep itself aloof.