Milli mála - 2019, Blaðsíða 102

102 Milli mála 11/2019
GILDED CR EATUR ES STR A INING A N D DY ING
The sunlight lends a golden hue to both the water and air, framing
the movement of the balloons and swans while contributing to an
impression of elevated superiority, but this superiority is based on
what appears to be a false rejection of their surroundings.
The image of the blonde sea works in concert with the “Gilded
Creature” mentioned in the fourth stanza and the whiteness of the
swans, creating a motif that reflects some of the dualisms in
Dickinson’s treatment of both colour and feminine performance. As
mentioned, the “sea of blonde” may refer literally to a body of water
bathed in sunlight, but it could also refer symbolically to a large
quantity of a specific thing (as in the phrase “a sea of faces”). Might
the “sea of blonde” invoke a group of people, such as the blonde-
haired performers who appeared in America in increasing numbers
during the latter half of the nineteenth century? The image seems
more abstract than that. Insofar as it is symbolic, it could denote a
mass of associative ideas linked to blondness, such as feminine purity,
angelic innocence, and ethereality. The swan, an image of both
beauty and whiteness, strengthens these associations. On the other
hand, the “Gilded Creature” seems to bring out oppositional mean-
ings. “Gilded” implies a cheap coating of gold, carrying associations
of empty ostentatiousness and wealth, qualities that stand against the
traditional values of blondness and light-coloured clothing that Jenny
Lind personified in mid nineteenth-century performance. If we read
the sea of blonde as a trope connected to these traditional values, the
balloon appears to be at once an extension of them and yet also a
deviation from them. As a “Gilded Creature,” the balloon rises above
the sea of blonde, buoyed into the golden light, but it also constitutes
a false reflection of the sea, as though its separation only accentuates
its garish exterior.
The third stanza introduces a crowd, strengthening the impression
that the balloons and swans are participants in a staged performance:
Their Ribbons just beyond the eye -
They struggle - some - for Breath -
And yet the Crowd applaud, below -
They would not encore - Death -