The Nobody Who Became a Somebody

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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.
Dickinson didn’t always wish to be an unpublished and unknown writer and at one point “began her career with a normal appetite for recognition.” (Wilbur) It is seen in her poem “Success is counted sweetest (112)” how she seems to praise an unknown success. Dickinson’s poems were numbers by when they were believed to have been written and as this was almost 150 poems before “I’m Nobody! Who are you?” it can be assumed it was during the time of her still wishing to be published. The third and fourth line in the poem state “To comprehend a nectar/ Requires sorest need” (3,4) in which the narrator is calling to attention that to truly enjoy the feeling of success you must truly want it to the point that you are suffering or feel like you would die without it. It contrasts greatly with her poem “260” where she believes it “dreary – to be- somebody” (5) and doesn’t wish to advertise herself at all or have success.
With the aforementioned poem, Dickinson had praised success but is greatly contrasted once again with “I’m Nobody! Who are you?” by using the comparison style of similes. Dickinson compares being published as being “like a frog” (6) as we “tell one’s name – the live long Ju...

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...w. These were before her turn on publishing commenced and after that never showed her poems to a publisher ever again and believed that by publishing the work it was like selling the royal air or selling free gifts from God. (Guthrie) It wasn’t until her sister discovered all of the poems in a fascicle within one of Dickinson’s drawers that they were sent to a publisher and published soon after. Now there are books and critics for Emily Dickinson’s work that has turned a woman who praised being a “nobody” and never publishing to a “somebody” that everyone loves.

Works Cited

Guthrie, James. “Emily Dickinson”. ENG 3310-02 American Texts: Colonial -1890.Wright State University, Fairborn, Ohio. 25 October 2013. Lecture.
Kennedy, X. J.. "Two Critical Casebooks: Critics on Emily Dickinson." An introduction to poetry. 13 ed. Boston: Little, Brown, 1966. 343-344. Print.

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