Expectation — is Contentment —

Expectation — is Contentment —
Gain — Satiety —
But Satiety — Conviction
Of Necessity

Of an Austere trait in Pleasure —
Good, without alarm
Is a too established Fortune —
Danger — deepens Sum —


    -Fr865, J807, Fascicle 38, 1864

For some reason when I first read this I heard Julie Andrews as Maria Von Trapp, or maybe Mary Poppins, sing-saying it. “Children, repeat after me, "Expectation — is Contentment —…”

Come to think of it, there is something Governess-like in Emily Dickinson, 

This one is tough syntactically from the very first line:

Expectation — is Contentment —

Is contentment the subject or object here?

Does this line mean that (our) Expectation is (to eventually have) Contentment?

Or does it mean that expectation itself, that is to say, anticipation, is where one finds true contentment?

Which of these two different ideas is meant by Dickinson? It seems like she must mean one or the other, right? But Dickinson does this kind of syntactically slippery thing all of the time, so we suspect she means both. (Dickinson is somehow able to condense language so much that multiple meanings begin to emerge, which can make it very difficult to nail down her syntax to one particular meaning.) This poem works either way that you interpret the line. They both play into its meaning. 

In the two ways to read this line, we actually have one entire idea, which is this: 

We have the expectation that if we have what we want, then we will become content (first meaning). But anticipation is, ironically, where one may find true contentment (second meaning).

In the way that I processed the poem, the second meaning didn't kick in until I’d read it all the way through once. It’s like a coda, but one that you have to go back to the beginning of the poem to get. 

OK, let's work through the rest of the poem.

But Satiety — Conviction
Of Necessity

We have an expectation of contentment, and that if we gain we will be satisfied, but in satiety (feeling full) there is a "Necessity." 

Satiety brings...

Conviction
Of Necessity

Of an Austere trait in Pleasure —

What does having an austere trait in our pleasure mean? I think it means that we show constraint.

The next lines comprise an aphorism:

Good, without alarm
Is a too established Fortune —

If there is no alarm in our good, then it’s too “established." Don't let yourself get too comfortable. You mustn't rest in your feeling of satisfaction, in your happiness. Stay alert to pain.  

Then she looks at the idea from a slightly different angle,

Danger — deepens Sum —

This is the third or fourth wisdom bomb she’s dropped on us in this poem. Danger deepens Sum. This could mean a couple things as far as I can figure it. One is that when we gain, the risk of loss makes our wholeness (sum) more meaningful. It “deepens” it.

Another possibility is that when we are are on the other side of gain, in expectation, the risk we take for that gain deepens it.

That all brings us back around to that first line again. Now that we’ve worked our way through the poem, the first line begins to take on its second meaning. Now we can see that because satiety is suspect, expectation (anticipation) is where true contentment lies.

The argument that Dickinson is making here is difficult for us to get because it's ironic. (I heard Elon Musk say in an interview recently that "fate is the ultimate irony maximizer." Hmm.) It’s not in gain that we find satisfaction, but in expectation. And if we, perchance, find ourselves in gain, well then, it is best to maintain a sense of austerity, which is to say, moderation.

This is the last poem of Fascicle 38. Emily perhaps wrote this poem to remind herself of what is “Necessary,"  but I don't think she really wrote this poem for herself.  It feels aimed for an audience who still needs to learn these lessons. I believe she wrote it for us, the Governess's charges. She’s helping us to understand the wisdom of valuing our desire over the satisfaction of desire, and once we have achieved our desire, the necessity of austerity. We are to see that danger “deepens the Sum.” It’s not a message of comfort. Truth, ironically, is what brings us relief here, not easy comfort, and certainly not satiety.

    -/)dam Wade l)eGraff