What Soft — Cherubic Creatures

The gentlewomen, the angelic and excessively fragile “[c]reatures” (Line 1), represent a class of people who cannot confront the truth about the imperfections of humanity and the world, or “freckled Human Nature” (Line 7). The gentlewomen also represent privilege, as they don’t have to interact with the toilsome, disquieting world. Their status as gentlewomen detaches them from common society. Thus, gentlewomen symbolize the power of a person’s socioeconomic position. The gentlewomen can afford to cultivate “[a] Horror so refined” (Line 6) because they have the resources to build an affected image and keep troubled reality at bay.

The gentlewomen’s superior position then symbolizes something close to irreligiosity. The prestige and privilege of the gentlewomen put them at odds with their “Deity” (Line 8), which suggests that wealthy, upper-class women might not represent virtue and decency after all. In Dickinson’s poem, the prestigious women ultimately symbolize vanity and pretentiousness.

Christ—the “Deity” (Line 8)—represents the average person. Christ isn’t a member of the upper class like the gentlewomen. Instead, Christ represents the “common” (Line 9) people. He doesn’t keep company with gentlewomen or gentlemen but with fishermen or the working class. He represents humanity and stands in for imperfect people and the flawed world, which is why he died for people’s sins.