To Hang Our Head Ostensibly - Analysis

A small bow that turns into a philosophical trick

This poem argues that what looks like humility can be a misreading of our own nature: we perform a lowered head, then discover that the mind’s true orientation is not meant for submission. The opening gesture, To hang our head ostensibly, is pointedly public-facing—ostensibly suggests a posture meant to be seen. But the surprise comes fast: we later find that this bowed shape was not the posture of the immortal mind. Dickinson’s central claim is that the mind, in its most essential self, does not naturally “hang” at all; it only imitates that shape under certain conditions.

The mismatch: body-language versus the “immortal mind”

The poem’s first tension is between the outward body and the inward, enduring consciousness. A head can droop; it’s a physical signal of shame, fatigue, grief, even obedience. Yet Dickinson yokes that everyday gesture to something stubbornly unphysical: the immortal mind. The phrase creates a contradiction on purpose. If the mind is immortal, why would it have a “posture” in the first place? Dickinson’s answer seems to be that we treat the mind as if it should mirror the body’s defeat, and then we’re startled to learn it doesn’t. The mind’s immortality implies not just endlessness but a kind of uprightness—an inner stance that resists being trained into abasement.

“Sly presumption”: humility that smuggles in superiority

The tone sharpens in the second stanza. What the discovery Affords is not comfort but a sly presumption. That adjective matters: sly implies something half-hidden, clever, maybe morally slippery. Once you realize the bowed head is only “ostensible,” you are tempted to assume you’ve caught the trick behind everyone else’s posture, too. The poem quietly exposes an ugly loop: the performance of humility can become a new kind of self-flattery. Even the word presumption suggests overstepping—claiming knowledge about others based on your own private revelation.

Dense fuzz, gauze, cobwebs: a world made of near-nothings

Dickinson’s imagery turns airy and strange: so dense a fuzz, plane of Gauze, Cobweb attitudes. These are materials that are both present and insubstantial—thin, clinging, hard to see clearly. In that atmosphere, “attitudes” (a word that can mean both physical stance and mental stance) become cobwebby: delicate, habitual, and a little vacant. The speaker’s accusation—You too take those attitudes—lands like a finger pointing through fog. The poem suggests that social life can be made of gauze-thickened perceptions: we think we’re reading humility, sorrow, or wisdom in a bowed head, but we may only be watching people move through a filmy medium where signals get distorted.

The turn from “we” to “you”

A key shift is the pronouns. The poem begins with our, inviting shared complicity: To hang our head. Then it pivots to You too, and the shared reflection becomes a subtle indictment. That pivot deepens the poem’s central tension: the insight that frees the speaker from one false posture also tempts the speaker into a new posture—superiority disguised as clarity. Dickinson keeps the tone brisk and slightly mischievous, as if the poem itself is demonstrating how quickly an inward discovery can harden into a judgment of others.

A sharper question the poem leaves hanging

If we live on a plane of Gauze, how can anyone tell the difference between genuine grief and a merely ostensibly lowered head? The poem’s slyness may be self-directed: perhaps the speaker’s presumption is another cobweb attitude, only more intellectual. Dickinson leaves us in that uncomfortable possibility—where even the attempt to stand “upright” in the mind can become its own gauzy performance.