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By Coren Feldman
Apple TV created a deceptively deep story with Dickinson, a show following a fictionalized version of Emily Dickinson's life, starring Hailee Steinfeld.
The show initially lures you in with its playful juxtaposition of its 19th century setting and 21st century slang, its championing of Dickinson as a feminist icon and its ironic comparisons to contemporary events (such as the characters affirming that republicans are the only ones that cares about minorities).
But beneath it all lurks darker themes that are explored as the show progresses: Dickinson's fascination with death, the looming civil war, the oppression of black Americans and the repression of women, like Dickinson herself, who were expected to be housewives and had yet to be granted the right to vote.
The time this story is set in was not kind to Dickinson (or to most of those who lived through it). Between sickness, death and societal limitations on what women were allowed to do, the tragedies in Dickinson are largely born not out of decisions made by characters, but out of those decisions they didn't have the luxury to make.
True to Dickinson's poetry, the shadow of death looms over all the characters in this story. Dickinson's best friend (and her brother's fiancée) Sue has lost her entire family and we're constantly reminded of how quickly people get sick and die throughout the show - her brother even exhumes a baby's grave and moves it in order to make the plot next to his available for Sue.
The show somehow balances those ideas with the lighter, more playful side of Dickinson's story perfectly. What's more, its focus on her writing and use of surreal imagery (such as death's carriage, which she sometimes rides in) bring her poetry to life in breathtaking and triumphant ways.
Steinfeld's Dickinson is both fun and complex; her wit and ideals resonate with a modern audience, but she's still confined in her own time period, making concessions and suffering consequences for her actions.
Many plot points on the show are drawn from speculation around Dickinson's life, but while the show may not strictly follow the facts of Dickinson's life, it follows the spirit of her writing, and in doing so, makes her feel more vivid and relatable.
Coren Feldman is the founder of CorenTV and a male, 25-33 year old median income consumer in New York.