Milli mála - 2019, Qupperneq 105

Milli mála 11/2019 105
GREGORY ALAN PHIPPS
an individual performer, likely a dancer. This performer does access
several traditional ideals allied with blondness and lightness, includ-
ing fragility (represented by the balloons), purity, and beauty (repre-
sented by the swans), but she also personifies an angelic ascent above
bodily needs—a rejection of basic elements (including air) and an
attempt to capture the celestial associations of the golden light that
suffuses the scene. However, the paradox is that the performer must
use her body to transcend the purely physical. She must “spin” and
“strain” to elevate herself, and ultimately the need for physical activ-
ity leads to her crash.
The second half of the poem (lines 10-20) showcases how the con-
flict between the ethereal and the physical unfolds on the stage. The
more the performer tries to fly through the air like a divine being,
the more her efforts become apparent. However, either her struggle
has no impact on the crowd or they enjoy it as part of the show.
Furthermore, as the performer comes closer to a breakdown, the
original object, the balloon, re-enters the poem, anticipating the mo-
ment when a literal balloon eclipses the performance in the final
stanza. The “Clerks in Counting Rooms” bring the poem back to its
first line: “You’ve seen Balloons set - Hav’nt You?” Well, “’Twas only
a Balloon.” This boomerang arc serves to bracket the poem, eliding
the tropological construction of the balloon that develops throughout
it. It is as though the clerks attempt to eliminate the feminine per-
former from the poem. Yet the irony is that the clerks’ place within
the poem depends on the balloon representing a feminine performer.
After all, it is far likelier that an audience would pay to watch a
woman perform than to see a balloon drift over the sea. Thus, the
clerks’ apparent attempt to reduce the balloon to a simple inanimate
object with no symbolic value amounts to an act of self-effacement.
As a depiction of feminine performance, the poem spotlights the
dualisms that unspool through portrayals of an angelic ascent above
the masses and the role the body may play in bringing about this
ascension. At the same time, the poem also suggests that the para-
doxical attempt to use the body to transcend physicality only empha-
sizes the inescapable needs of the body. With regard to the wider
motifs of blondness and whiteness in Dickinson’s literature, the poem
deploys a blonde sea as an image that feeds into impressions of celes-