Over the fence

b. The short poem vividly presents an innocent
girl whose idea is also innocent and she has a complicated inner heart struggling between the temptations of nice strawberries and the fear of being blamed. At last the girl guesses that if God is a boy, he would fail to resist temptation of strawberries just as the little girl herself.
Question:
Will the源自文库God climb through the fence?
• But －if I stained my Apron－ • God would certainly scold! • Oh dear,－ I guess if He were a Boy － • He‘d － climb － if He could!
Analysis of the poem
a. This short and plain poem depicts a girl of
Fence represents some forbidden rules to
restrict the girl’s action and contains her eagernes s of inner heart. Fence was also an obstacle that the God has created for killing people’s eagernes s. Therefore strawberries referred to some perpet ration or some inner expectations that are forbidd en by the God. The poet couldn’t resist the temptation of strawberry. She wishes God was a boy who has a n innocent heart. This poem shows a kind of complicated psychological feeling and the life expectation.
eagerness who wants the nice strawberry, which leaves readers the space of imagination. The poet describes naive girl’ s psychological activities when she suddenly sees the nice strawberries over the fence. The girl wants to pick it very much . “I could climb if I tried”. But she is afraid that if she stains her apron, the God would scold her. “Berries are nice”. The girl is intensely tempted by the strawberry while she could not climb through the fence to get it . Then she begins to suppose that if the God was a boy, he could not help climbing the fence to pick the strawberry.
c. We can see that Dickinson has described a girl who would be in trouble for staining her apron, but also climbing a fence. These are things that \”good girls”\ do not do. By stressing the word \”Boy”\ at the end of the poem we see how it would be fine for God to climb the fence if he is a male.
Theme
The poet wishes to break away from the worldly shackles(束缚物) and to pursue the free and innocent life.
Symbolism
Strawberries: It’s the eye of this poem. It symbolizes all the beautiful things and things people desire to get. Strawberries stands for some kinds of temptation and mysterious expect, but all these are forbidden by God or convention. God: Embodiment of authority. Personification of traditional thoughts.
Major themes of her works:
Dickinson left no formal statement of her aesthetic intentions and, because of the variety of her themes, such as interpretation of life, love, art and death , her work does not fit conveniently into any one genre. She has been regarded, alongside Emerson ,as a Transcendentalist. Apart from the major themes discussed above, Dickinson's poetry frequently use humor, puns, irony and satire.
Over the fence 《篱笆那边》
(1830 – 1886)
A.she was an American poet and was born in a successful family with strong community ties.
B. She lived a leisure and simple life and kept single all her life. C. She wrote 2000 poems, but only seven of them published in her life time.
Over the fence
• • • •
《篱笆那边》
• • • • • 篱笆那边 有草莓一棵 我知道，如果我愿 我可以爬过 草莓，真甜！ 可是，脏了围裙 上帝一定要骂我 哦，亲爱的，我猜，如果他 也是个孩子 他也会爬过去，如果他能爬 过！
Over the fence－ Strawberries－ grow － Over the fence－ I could climb－ if I tried, I know － • Berries are nice! • • • •