not only to her refusal of conversion and the religious piety of her community including her peers, but also to a forming inclination which later developed into devotion to poetry. The choice of poetic vocation was considered rebellion against the social conventions of nineteenth century New England. Taking up a vocation at all was quite unusual for uppermiddle class women. In well-to-do circles marriage was "the only viable option for women," even if the improvement of women's education and

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... s dependence of men and women on the family led to the decline of patriarchal authority (Loehndorf 114). Loehndorf makes a difference between married and unmarried women, saying that the latter were expected to be dedicated to a "noble cause," and are often characterized by "a sense of election that conveys power." (Loehndorf 115). Thus Dickinson seems to have similar experiences to those of other single women of her time. Dickinson's sense of mission and election is linked to poets and poetry. The images she uses to express this are the following: the woman in white, title, rank, royalty, crown, being divine and immortal, for example, in poems 194, 230, 307, 334, 353, 395, 409, 466, 549, 740. Consequently, the poems including the above motifs may be considered confession poems on Dickinson's concept of poetry and the role of poets. Fred D. White compares Dickinson to a "cloistered nun," as her commitment to poetry "has a religious character." He calls the white dress Dickinson always wore "her habit, the outward sign of selfelection to the holy vocation of poetry." (White 41). He argues that Dickinson herself found a parallel between her life and that of nuns as, in his interpretation, she alludes to herself as the "Wayward Nun" in "Sweet mountains -ye tell me no lie" (Fr745). Sandra M. Gilbert also finds connection between the white dress and vocation when she claims that in "A solemn thing it was I said" it is clear that the white dress is "the emblem of a 'blameless mystery' " and dropping her life in the 'purple well' means she "renounces triviality and ordinariness in order to 'wear'-that is to enact-solemnity, dedication, vocation." (Gilbert 29). Women did not usually have a vocation at all. If they did, a typical occupation for educated women was teaching or nursing, while poetry was considered a male occupation. Vivien R. Pollack finds correlation between the fact that Emily Dickinson more or less concealed her poetic activity from her family and her "attitudes toward the intellectual aggression she identified with male sexual behavior." (Pollack 236). According to Pollack, this was due to her relationship with her father and "the patriarchal religious culture of the Connecticut Valley." (Pollack 236). Pollack presumes that Dickinson's punishment motif, which "expresses her fear that she will be punished for unwomanly behavior" is partly due