"Faith" is a fine invention

Dickinson’s poem qualifies as a lyric since it’s short and expresses some of the personal beliefs of the author. As with Dickinson’s other poems, she uses her speaker to subvert norms about religion and gender dynamics. The poem is also a parable since it tries to teach the reader a lesson about when to rely on faith and when to consult something more concrete. Since the lesson isn’t 100% clear, the poem has elements of a riddle, as the reader must figure out what the speaker means by faith, gentlemen, and microscopes, and they have to define “an Emergency!” (Line 4).

The speaker of Dickinson’s poem has quite a bit of personality. They don’t have an avowed gender, but their robust character manifests in the poem’s syntax and grammar or the arrangement of words and punctuation. Right away, the speaker expresses their skepticism of faith by putting the words in quotes. This type of punctuation is informally known as “scare quotes”; it’s as if the speaker is afraid to say faith, so they put it in quotes, so someone else says faith in Line 1 when the speaker announces, “‘Faith’ is a fine invention.”

The “fine invention” contributes to the speaker’s personality. It demonstrates the speaker’s cheekiness since people don’t tend to think of faith as an invention. People don’t talk about the inventor of faith like they talk about the inventor of the lightbulb (Thomas Edison in 1879) or the inventors of the first type of smartphone (IBM in 1992). Yet the speaker treats faith as if it’s a product of humans and technology instead of some kind of intangible but fundamental spiritual source that predates humans. A fair amount of religions believe God was around before humans, which is why God created humans, and humans have faith in the God of their choice.

In a sense, the link between faith and invention is a literary device known as a metaphor. Faith isn’t literally an invention. It’s not a thing that a person or company made up on a specific date, so the speaker uses the word figuratively. The literary device brings faith into the realm of human invention, which may make people who believe in God somewhat upset since they tend to believe humans didn’t invent God but God created humans, which is why humans have faith in God. The ironic tone of Line 1 reveals something else about the speaker: They’re not shy about saying something potentially offensive or going against established norms.

Line 2 finishes the first sentence started in Line 1: Faith is an adequate device “[f]or Gentlemen who see!” Once again, the punctuation and word choice add to the speaker’s personality. They are enthusiastic and lively, so they stress the word “see” with italics and end their first declaration with an exclamation mark. They also puff up the people “who see” since they turn these gentlemen into “Gentlemen”—they turn a common noun into a proper noun. It’s as if the speaker has specific Gentlemen in mind, and these Gentlemen are uncommon, so they require a capital “G.” At the same time, the capitalization adds to the irreverent tone. It suggests faith is exclusively for Gentlemen—not regular men, not women, and not any other kind of person. Here, the speaker brings in the theme of Class and Gender. Yet they subvert socioeconomic norms by putting faith in scare quotes and implying that not all gentlemen are laudable visionaries.

The existence of the poem further subverts the power historically given to men or “Gentlemen” (Line 2). If the gentlemen were as high and mighty as their capital letter suggests, they probably wouldn’t need the speaker to tell them when to use faith and when to switch to something else. The speaker feels compelled to point something out to these men, which indicates they don’t know everything. Gentlemen are humans; like humans of any gender, they are fallible and not immune to errors. The speaker may be a gentleman, but they may also be a woman or someone of a different gender. The mystery around the speaker’s identity adds to the puzzling tone of the poem and its transgressive style.

The playful, contrary tone carries over into Line 3, when the speaker announces, “[b]ut Microscopes are prudent[.]” Microscopes don’t require capitalization—it’s a common noun. By capitalizing the regular noun, the speaker puts “Microscopes” on the same level as the “Gentlemen” (Line 2). The punctuation further erodes the status of men as the speaker compares them to microscopes or objects. Both turn into proper nouns, so neither is better than the other. When it comes to the speaker, they seem to enjoy thumbing their nose at conventions. They inflate people and ideas merely to knock them down a bit.

The speaker emerges as the wisest. Through the poem, the speaker instructs the gentlemen (and anyone reading it) about the best times to use faith and a microscope. They have the most forethought and foresight, which is why, finishing the second and last sentence of the poem, they tell the men and the reader that microscopes are a wise and cautious choice “[i]n an Emergency!” (Line 4). Once again, the speaker turns a common noun into a proper noun. As with gentlemen and microscopes, the word emergency doesn’t require capitalization. By capitalizing it, the speaker turns it into a specific event. An emergency becomes “an Emergency”—it’s a particular war or calamity like America’s Civil War, which Dickinson lived through.

As with faith, gentlemen, and microscopes, what qualifies as an emergency remains opaque. It could be a war or a public event that impacts millions of people. It could also involve something more personal, like a relationship in crisis—a marriage about to dissolve or a meaningful friendship about to end. The speaker is lively and peculiar. They use two exclamation points, italicize a word, and capitalize words that don’t require capitalization. They are also elusive and mystifying. They don’t explain or detail the meaning behind faith, microscopes, and the gentlemen who invent and use them. The poem becomes a riddle with crisscrossing and debatable ideas and takeaways.