Are you a "somebody" or are you a "nobody"? The poem called "I'm Nobody! Who Are You?" by Emily Dickinson, she talks about how she is proud to be a "nobody" because she feels like you are more of an individual. When you're a "somebody" you are a follower, you are like everyone else, and you have no individuality. Teenagers today are to focused on being "somebody" or being a person everybody would like instead of being themselves. Being your individual self is the best person you can be.
Emily Dickinson is trying to explain that is okay to be a "nobody" in fact better to be a "nobody."By "nobody" she means someone who doesn't follow the crowd. Someone who doesn't do similar things like everyone else instead of copying everyone. "How public- like a frog-" she meant as in people who are popular, who are so open with their life. She also stated " To tell one's things name- the livelong June" which meant that these people who repeat their name to everyone to sound more important than everyone else, but they're not because they act like everyone else.
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That's how some people compare themselves to the followers that they have or how many someone else has. When that should not matter to them. For example, people would always try to figure out different ways to get more followers even spending money. Another example, is that teens sometimes only do things to "be cool" when we should do things that we want to do like to get the newest phone because everyone wants it. Teens would just like to "fit in" when they should just be
Her voice expresses the individual power to select the people whose opinions matter as well as who the individual lets in. “The Soul selects her own Society - / Then - shuts the Door - (354).” It also represents how the individual has the power to make choices independent from the majority view. Dickinson also voices that individualism can come along with unacceptance because you are not conforming yourself to the standards of society,“This is my letter to the World / That never wrote to Me - “ (This is my Letter to the World 354).
The life led by Emily Dickinson was one secluded from the outside world, but full of color and light within. During her time she was not well known, but as time progressed after her death more and more people took her works into consideration and many of them were published. Dickinson’s life was interesting in its self, but the life her poems held, changed American Literature. Emily Dickinson led a unique life that emotionally attached her to her writing and the people who would read them long after she died.
Emily Dickinson was a polarizing author whose love live has intrigued readers for many years. Her catalog consists of many poems and stories but the one thing included in the majority of them is love. It is documented that she was never married but yet love is a major theme in a vast amount of her poetry. Was there a person that she truly loved but never had the chance to pursue? To better understand Emily Dickinson, one must look at her personal life, her poems, and her diction.
Emily Dickinson had an interesting life, and is a profound woman in the history of America and literature. Emily wrote many poems. Some are titled, and many are given chronological numbers instead of headlining the main theme. I am interpreting Poem #315.
Emily Dickinson, who achieved more fame after her death, is said to be one of the greatest American poets of all time. Dickinson communicated through letters and notes and according to Amy Paulson Herstek, author of “Emily Dickinson: Solitary and Celebrated Poet,” “Writing was the way she kept in touch with the world” (15). Dickinson’s style is unique and although unconventional, it led to extraordinary works of literature. Dickinson lived her life in solitude, but in her solitude she was free to read, write and think which led to her nonconformity and strong sense of individualism. Suzanne Juhasz, a biographer of Dickinson, sums up most critics’ idea of Dickinson ideally: “Emily Dickinson is at once the most intimate of poets, and the most guarded. The most self-sufficient, and the neediest. The proudest, and the most vulnerable. These contradictions, which we as her readers encounter repeatedly in her poems, are understandable, not paradoxical, for they result from the tension between the life to which she was born and the one to which she aspired” (1). Dickinson poured her heart and soul into over 1,700
Emily Dickinson is one of the great visionary poets of nineteenth century America. In her lifetime, she composed more poems than most modern Americans will even read in their lifetimes. Dickinson is still praised today, and she continues to be taught in schools, read for pleasure, and studied for research and criticism. Since she stayed inside her house for most of her life, and many of her poems were not discovered until after her death, Dickinson was uninvolved in the publication process of her poetry. This means that every Dickinson poem in print today is just a guess—an assumption of what the author wanted on the page. As a result, Dickinson maintains an aura of mystery as a writer. However, this mystery is often overshadowed by a more prevalent notion of Dickinson as an eccentric recluse or a madwoman. Of course, it is difficult to give one label to Dickinson and expect that label to summarize her entire life. Certainly she was a complex woman who could not accurately be described with one sentence or phrase. Her poems are unique and quite interestingly composed—just looking at them on the page is pleasurable—and it may very well prove useful to examine the author when reading her poems. Understanding Dickinson may lead to a better interpretation of the poems, a better appreciation of her life’s work. What is not useful, however, is reading her poems while looking back at the one sentence summary of Dickinson’s life.
Reading a poem by Emily Dickinson can often lead the reader to a rather introspective state. Dickinson writes at length about the drastically transformative effect a book may have upon its’ reader. Alternating between iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, Dickinson masterfully uses the ballad meter to tell a story about the ecstasy brought by reading. In poem number 1587, she writes about the changes wrought upon the reader by a book and the liberty literature brings.
Emily Dickinson was born in Amherst Massachusetts; a small farming town that had a college and a hat factory. There, she was raised in a strict Calvinist household while receiving most of her education at a boarding school that followed the American Puritanical tradition. She seldom left her hometown; virtually, her only contact with her friends came to be made through letters. As a young woman, Dickinson rejected comforting traditions, resisted male authority, and wrestled alone with her complex and often contrary emotions. Although she was claimed to be a high-spirited and active young woman, Dickinson began to withdraw from society in the 1850's. The many losses she experienced throughout her life, the death of her father, mother, close neighbors, and fr...
In Dickinson, I 'm nobody who are you?’’ shows she is proud of being a nobody and not being in the "crowd". She explains this when she says, “Are you – Nobody – too? Then there’s a pair of us! Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know (line 2-4)”! She found person just like her and is excited about being in a couple with a nobody too. But you can also see she is a little scared of how powerful the society is over people. For example, the celebrity Kim Kardashian and Nicki Manji and two people who influenced the body standard on girls in the todays world. These women have gotten plastic surgery on their body to get more fame and because of that many other women are doing the same because they think their body isn’t up to the society standard. Once you give into the society, you will not recognize yourself. Emily Dickinson complicates matter more when she writes,” How public – like a Frog – (line 6).” In other words, Dickinson believes she would be exposed and like everybody else as frog all look and sound the same. Meanwhile Frost is unsure of him not going with the crowd. In” The Road Not Taken”, Frost is choosing between two roads. One of the road is more popular and the other one is not popular. As he was on the road he started being unsure about which one to take. Finally, out of curiously he goes to the less traveled one. Part of him is regretting going this way but
Literary Analysis of Emily Dickinson's Poetry. Emily Dickinson is one of the most famous authors in American history, and a good amount of that can be attributed to her uniqueness in writing. In Emily Dickinson's poem 'Because I could not stop for Death,' she characterizes her overarching theme of Death differently than it is usually described through the poetic devices of irony, imagery, symbolism, and word choice. Emily Dickinson likes to use many different forms of poetic devices and Emily's use of irony in poems is one of the reasons they stand out in American poetry. In her poem 'Because I could not stop for Death,' she refers to 'Death' in a good way.
In the two-stanza poem “I’m Nobody! Who are you?” , using a childish and playful manner to in a sense defend her isolated life, Emily Dickinson mocks the dreary Somebodies (5) who are incapable of comprehending that anonymity and the avoidance of the public eye are preferable to fame or recognition. As a poet who remained unrecognized during her lifetime, we can see how in this poem Dickinson shows that she is indeed excited to be a “Nobody” and makes use of an exclamation mark (1) to assure this fact. Yet, as excited as she can be for being Nobody, in the second part of the opening line, we realize the speaker is meeting someone else, and in the line that follows, it is revealed to us that she is hoping the person she meets is a nobody too.
Emily Dickinson, a radical feminist is often expressing her viewpoints on issues of gender inequality in society. Her poems often highlight these viewpoints. Such as with the case of her poem, They shut me up in Prose. Which she place herself into the poem itself, and address the outlining issues of such a dividend society. She is often noted for using dashes that seem to be disruptive in the text itself. Dickinson uses these disruption in her text to signify her viewpoints on conflictual issues that reside in society. From the inequality that women face, to religion, to what foreseeable future she would like to happen. All of her values and morales are upheld by the dashes that Dickinson introduces into her poems.
Emily Dickinson was known well for her solitude nature to the point of never leaving her house after dropping out of Mount Holyoke College. She was never fond of being out in the public light and at one point in her life even stated she thought it was ridiculous to have her poems published. This feeling of wanting to not be famous and enjoying the solitude is emphasized in her poem “I’m Nobody! Who are you? (260)” published in 1891. Using similes and pronouns Dickinson gives a sense of talking to a dear friend, the reader, on why she is happy to be nobody.
Many of her poems were a reaction to the rejection of many publishers and other literary critics. This particular poem’s character comes from Dickinson’s reaction to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s statement that “poets are thus liberating gods.” Here she is challenging the established literati by questioning popular Emersonian views. In particular, this poem is a reaction to Emerson’s belief that “the poet is the sayer, the namer, and represents beauty.” Basically, it is a reaction to the idea that the poet is the creator of beautiful words, liberating the common people by giving them words they would not have access to.
...e has the right to choose how to spend her life. Dickinson lived a very lonely and isolated life where she lost many important people in her life. The poem, “The Soul selects her own Society” brings attention to the Western society where isolation becomes prevalent and the cultures starts to open up to independence and freedom which leads to actual social relations being replaced with nonexistent sociableness. However, Dickinson was not easily swayed by force, wealth, and beauty like the “Majority”. She was a strong woman who could “shut the Door” and “close the Valves of her attention-Like Stone-”. She provides many ways to interpret the poem and she teaches an important lesson about how the “Soul” makes the decision and not the mind. She creates and eye opening life lesson that enlightens people to make their own decisions for their own life within twelve lines.