I Can Wade Grief

In her era of cultural intolerance of alcohol and the notion that giving in to strong liquor signaled moral weakness and promised the collapsing superstructure of civilization itself, Dickinson uses alcohol and inebriation to symbolize not moral degradation but rather the “push” (line 4) of life’s too infrequent joys, as tonic as they are ephemeral.

Far from condemning such intoxicating moments, Dickinson celebrates them and dismisses those who might look on such happiness as somehow inappropriate, who go tsk-tsk her for giving in to joy. She mocks herself for her careless behavior, refusing to take seriously the risks of joy. After all, the only issue with alcohol comes from constant inebriation, or a fantasy world of perpetual bliss. In using the symbol of alcohol to suggest the tender delights life offers, Dickinson cautions not to get caught up in what she sees as the real danger: staying drunk, that is, expecting joy to last.

To suggest the formidable dimensions of life’s sorrows, Dickinson uses the Himalayan Mountains in the distant Asian subcontinent. Why? There were no shortages of local mountain ranges she could have used—the Rockies, the Appalachians, for instance, had both been mapped by cartographers, and the Berkshires were literally in her Amherst backyard.