End Yellow highlight with note: clarify your theme and do not use second personIn Line 5 she Begin Yellow highlight with note: Do not use says with written textsays End Yellow highlight with note: Do not use says with written text"How dreary- to be -Somebody!"(Dickinson, line 5) the capitalization shows how “Somebody” means a person that is known and relevant. She thinks it is sad and boring to be understood, and known by the public. This poem relates to the overall theme of belonging.
This writing expresses such a dramatic and romantic view. The background of Dickinson is much more rich and privileged. She was able to get a proper education at Harvard and lived a very realism kind of life. Her background effects her writing differently and makes her poetry sound much more proper, formal and depressing compared to Whitman’s brighter and more informal poetry. The Themes in these authors writings are also different.
What do you think all of these poems have in common? Identity. The metaphors of being somebody in I'm Nobody, Who Are You? By Emily Dickinson, the caged bird in "Sympathy" By Paul Laurence Dunbar, and the rock and the island in "I Am a Rock" by Simon and Garfunkel represent how the speaker's identity is expressed in many ways.
To Dickinson, darkness seems to represent the unknown. The focus of this poem is people trying to find their way in the dark, where nothing can be foreseen. Sight is a prevalent theme in Untitled, achieved through words like
This is why she shows such a fascination towards it. “There is no frigate like a book”, this shows that she found literature as a great escape from life (Dickinson 1). Dickinson’s isolation to the world is further exemplified in, “I’m Nobody! Who are you?” I believe that this poem shows that she believes that she is nobody, and finds no reason to become a “somebody” because it is useless to her (Dickinson).
In the opening stanza the speaker states being too busy for death. Thus, death “kindly” takes the time to stop for her since she has no time to do it for herself. Death stops to pick up the speaker and take her on a ride in his horse-drawn carriage in the form of a suitor along with “immorality” being their chaperon. This “civility” that Death exhibits leads the speaker on giving up what made her busy as Dickinson states “And I had put away / My labor and my leisure too (6-7).
Dickinson writes, “Presuming Me to be a Mouse -/Aground – opon the Sands -/ But no Man moved Me – till the Tide / Went past my simple Shoe” (II-III. 9-10). The audience can infer that Dickinson believes and feels that she only amounts to a small and insignificant portion of the world. That Dickinson only sees herself as a sand speck among the many beaches of the world. As audience members one can truly relate to this as most of us feel that we get lost amongst the crowds, and that we don’t stand out as individuals.
Dickinson’s use of repetition and onomatopoeia helps show just how mad the narrator really is. It is stated,” Kept beating-beating- till I thought my mind was going numb”. The narrator is hearing noises that aren’t really there like the “beating” of a drum which supports the idea she is crazy. The first person point of view helps show that apparent funeral that is taking place inside of her mind. She states,” I felt a funeral, in my Brain…
“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe” claimed philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, inducing powerful questions regarding the role of the individual in the society. The individual can be alleged to become a negligible stain when set in comparison of an entity with such greater dimensions, such as the society or the natural world. Similar questions have been directed at the reader of a variety of Emily Dickinson’s works, as well as Primo Levi’s Survival in Auschwitz: If This Is a Man. The latter, of Italian descent, tells a non-fictional account of the experiences of the individual in the Auschwitz extermination camp, which claimed the lives of many of the European Jewry. The dreads described in Levi’s
When Dickinson was young she thought of death as a kind, peaceful gentleman. She elaborates on this idea in her poem “Because I could not Stop for Death”, “Because I could not stop for Death/ He kindly stopped for me/ We slowly drove - He knew no haste,” Emily Dickinson uses the personification of Death in a way that bears resemblance to a classy, peaceful gentleman who is willing to slowly guide and patiently wait for a lady. Her wording also gives the connotation that she is young and in love with this gentle Death. This idea abruptly turns into hatred when she loses her parents.
Poets use many different literary devices when writing poems. Learning about the different literary devices before reading poems, gives the reader a better understanding of the poem. Emily Dickinson used the literary device imagery to keep readers interested when she wrote the poem “I Felt a Funeral in My Brain”. Imagery is the experience felt through our senses. Emily Dickinson made sure that the reader could picture what was happening in the poem, in their mind as well as hear the sounds.
Dickinson began writing early on, yet her first piece was published after her death. Dickinson’s writing can be describe as gloomy or dark, whereas Whitman’s is not. Throughout her work she portrays how life merely continues and exploits the darker, less noticeable meaning of daily life events. Her writing is extremely precise, she uses slant rhymes through her writing. By doing such she is able to put emphasis on certain words to convey the prominence of what is being said.
In the poem, it is showing that not everyone has a set in stone purpose. It says throughout the whole poem that they are nobody. Sometimes people get stuck in a metaphorical swamp and do not know who they are or who they want to be. It is hard getting well known and actually being someone, or to have a name that stuck around in history. The poem “I’m nobody!
From the title of the poem, we can see that Dickinson has revealed to the reader instantly, that the poem is going to be dull and gloomy as she uses the word ‘death’ and ‘death’ is often associated with the loss of something or someone close. In the second line of the first stanza, we notice that death has been personified in the phrase “He kindly stopped for me“. This is linked with being a gentleman and this could imply that death is something not to feel scared about but instead, to feel
Well, now you know one of several “fires” that inspired me to write this book. Here is another way to explain why I wanted to complete this book. A short poem of Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain.
