Emily Dickinson Conformity

Throughout history society has depicted the “outsider” as the non-conformist. This non-conformist persona usually has negative attributes attached to it, therefore, no one wants to be correlated with it. For this reason, it is believed that the non-conformist poses danger to society because they may cause a collapse in its structure. Yet, a “mad” society meaning a society that poses danger to the outsider creates justification to their non conformity. In Emily Dickinson’s poem “Much Madness is Divinest Sense” she demonstrates how a “mad” society causes destruction on the non-conformist. To truly understand this “mad” society Dickinson refers to, one has to understand the society in which Emily lived in. In one sense, Emily is defending her

As a result, this consequence is shown through the break in the meter of the poem. The meter of every line in “Much Madness is Divinest Sense” uses iambic tetrameter, yet Dickinson destroys the meter of her poem on the fourth line by using a reversed dactyl. There is no reason to change the meter of the poem, but to express emphasis. In the first line of the poem Dickinson refers to non-conformists by labeling them as “Much madness” (1), but in reality being sane. However, The third line states exactly the opposite. Those who believe they are sane with “much sense,” meaning the society Dickinson lives in is in reality mad as seen when she says “starkest Madness.” Thus, to physically emphasize the destruction a “mad” society has on a non conformist she destroys the meter of the poem with the fourth line, “Tis the Majority” (4). The author is showing that the majority meaning the society who is described as having “much sense” in the previous line, is actually dangerous in the sense that “Tis the Majority” who destroys the the iambic tetrameter thus it is them who are labeled as “starkest madness” (3). Dickinson shows that the society she lives in, who believes they are sane, actually poses a danger to a non-conformist, which makes sense due to the nature of