Luxury Items (Symbols)
The poem's jewels, perfumes, dyes, and berries symbolize consumerism and material wealth. These are objects conventionally viewed as not just beautiful but also valuable, capable of bolstering the owner's wealth and status. Crucially, they come from places distant to the narrator—Latin American and Caribbean locations whose products and resources would have traditionally been out of reach for all but the wealthiest Americans, at least those in the New England setting where Dickinson lived and where her poems are often set. Due to industrialization and colonialism, these goods became increasingly available during the nineteenth century, but still carried connotations of luxury, exoticism, and rarity at the time of the poem's writing. By rejecting these objects, the speaker symbolically rejects material wealth and the social status that it carries, while also pushing back against the effects of the Industrial Revolution.
The Flower (Symbols)
In contrast to the expensive imports mentioned in the first half of the poem, the flower that anchors the second half symbolizes the overlooked beauty of the natural world. The flower is not considered monetarily valuable—it is neither a costly consumer good like a gemstone or perfume, nor a valued natural resource. Rather, it is something that deserves admiration purely for its inherent loveliness. Through admiring it, the speaker imbues it with a value that others might not see. For instance, Dickinson compares its colors to those of topaz and emerald—two gemstones—and therefore asks readers to consider why the flower's beauty is considered less special than the beauty of an actual topaz or emerald. In fact, the speaker argues that it is valuable enough to serve as part of a dowry for a wealthy person, making a fairly explicit argument that everyday natural objects are just as worthy of acclaim as more novel, expensive ones.
