What Is Fame? A Bee

589 Words2 Pages

Only a very few pieces of an American poet Emily Dickinson were published during her lifetime. The majority, more than seventeen hundred of them, became available to public after her death. Dickinson’s poems are short, unique, and lack a title. Common topics are death, immortality, and the role of a woman. Dickinson was not famous during her life, and she wanted her books to be burnt after she died. However, they were published, and she is now one of the most renowned American poets. The poem “Fame is a bee” (1763) expresses her view of fame, but it is not clear whether she really had no interest in being famous, or whether it was her desire, the path to immortality.
In the first line Dickinson uses a metaphor when she states that “Fame is a bee”, and she continues by explaining why it is true. Fame possesses everything that bee does – “song”, “sting”, and “wing”. “It has a song” (line 2) can be interpreted as that fame is very attractive. People wish to be famous because it opens a door to many desirable items and great experiences. Bee’s “song” is honey it produces. Honey is swe...

Show More
Related

  • The Secret Life Of Bees Rhetorical Analysis

    650 Words  | 2 Pages

    In life, actions and events that occur can sometimes have a greater meaning than originally thought. This is especially apparent in The Secret Life Of Bees, as Sue Monk Kidd symbolically uses objects like bees, hives, honey, and other beekeeping means to present new ideas about gender roles and social/community structures. This is done in Lily’s training to become a beekeeper, through August explaining how the hive operates with a queen, and through the experience Lily endures when the bees congregate around her.

    Read More

  • Beehives In The Secret Life Of Bees

    613 Words  | 2 Pages

    Intro: Working around the hives; dedicated and faster with each movement. Honey drizzling in golden crevices; a family unit working together, buzzing in harmony. Bees and beehives is a significant motif in the novel Secret Life of Bees: By Sue Monk Kidd because it represents the community of women in the novel. It also represents Lily Owen’s longing and need for a mother figure in her life. And finally, it was significant because the bees lived a secret life, just as Lily and Rosaleen did in the novel.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Secret Life Of Bees

    1089 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout The Secret Life of Bees , there is no shortage of symbolism, coming directly from its namesake, bees. Each connection draws upon the deep and rich meaning behind this wonderful composed text. The bees, however, never are a scapegoat. Similar to Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird character Atticus, they never allow for shortcuts or disillusion with reality. They force you to see the world as it is, and to accept it, and send love to it, for it is all you can, when you are as insignificant as a

    Read More

  • Sylvia Plath and Her Poetry

    1353 Words  | 3 Pages

    Emily Dickinson is regarded as “America’s most original poet” and was born on December 10th, 1830 (CITATION1). During her life, she spent most of her time alone in her house, spending time with only herself and writing poetry. When she died at the age of fifty-five, her sister decided to publish the 1,800 poems Emily had written. Before her death, Emily had only published ten of her poems. Because of this, she was not widely known before she died, unlike Sylvia Plath. Sylvia Plath, on the other hand, is a well-known author and poet. She even won the Pulitzer Prize award for Poetry in 1982 (CITATION2). Sylvia was similar to Emily Dickinson in that she was not an outgoing person. In fact, she was often depressed, and eventually took her own life in 1963 (CITATION3). While unfortunate, Sylvia Plath had written many popular poems, such as “Daddy”, short stories, and a semi-autobiographical novel called “The Bell Jar”.

    Read More

  • “Because I could not stop for Death” and “Annabel Lee”: Similarities, Differences, and Their Authors

    1506 Words  | 4 Pages

    “Although Emily Dickinson is known as one of America’s best and most beloved poets, her extraordinary talent was not recognized until after her death” (Kort 1). Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830, in Amherst, Massachusetts, where she spent most of her life with her younger sister, older brother, semi-invalid mother, and domineering father in the house that her prominent family owned. As a child, she was curious and was considered a bright student and a voracious reader. She graduated from Amherst Academy in 1847, and attended a female seminary for a year, which she quitted as she considered that “’I [she] am [was] standing alone in rebellion [against becoming an ‘established Christian’].’” (Kort 1) and was homesick. Afterwards, she excluded herself from having a social life, as she took most of the house’s domestic responsibilities, and began writing; she only left Massachusetts once. During the rest of her life, she wrote prolifically by retreating to her room as soon as she could. Her works were influenced ...

    Read More

  • Queenlessness In The Secret Life Of Bees

    1697 Words  | 4 Pages

    A beehive without a queen is a community headed for extinction. Bees cannot function without a queen. They become disoriented and depressed, and they stop making honey. This can lead to the destruction of the hive and death of the bees unless a new queen is brought in to guide them. Then, the bees will cooperate and once again be a prosperous community. Lily Melissa Owens, the protagonist of Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees, faces a similar predicament. While she does not live in a physical hive, the world acts as a hive. She must learn to work with its inhabitants, sharing a common direction, in order to reach her full potential. The motif of the beehive is symbolic of how crucial it is to be a part of a community in order to achieve

    Read More

  • Emily Dickinson: Life and Literature

    1064 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Emily Dickinson

    539 Words  | 2 Pages

    Recognized for experimenting with poetry, Emily Dickinson is said to be one of the greatest American poets. Her work was an amazing success even after being published four years after her death in 1890. Eleven editions of Dickinson’s work were published in less than two years. Emily Dickenson’s personal life, literary influences and romantic sufferings were the main inspirations for her poetry.

    Read More

  • Great American Poet Emily Dickinson

    701 Words  | 2 Pages

    Poetry is defined as literary work in which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm whether collectively or as a genre of literature. I chose to do all three poems by the one of our four great American poets, Emily Dickinson. The poems I have chosen to are, “Because I could not stop for death”, “Success is counted sweetest”, and “Triumph may be of several kinds”. The theme of each individual poem and its true interpreted meaning will be the focus of this paper.

    Read More

  • The Spiritual Growth of Lily Owens in The Secret Life of Bees

    1622 Words  | 4 Pages

    Zaleski, Jeff. “Review of The Secret Life of Bees.” Publishers Weekly 12 Nov. 2001: 33. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Detroit: Gale, 2009. N. pag. Literature Resource Center. Web. 9 Apr. 2014. .

    Read More

  • Emily Dickinson's Obsession with Death

    2687 Words  | 6 Pages

    Emily Dickinson became legendary for her preoccupation with death. All her poems contain stanzas focusing on loss or loneliness, but the most striking ones talk particularly about death, specifically her own death and her own afterlife. Her fascination with the morose gives her poems a rare quality, and gives us insight into a mind we know very little about. What we do know is that Dickinson’s father left her a small amount of money when she was young. This allowed her to spend her time writing and lamenting, instead of seeking out a husband or a profession. Eventually, she limited her outside activities to going to church. In her early twenties, she began prayed and worshipped on her own. This final step to total seclusion clearly fueled her obsession with death, and with investigating the idea of an afterlife. In “Because I could not stop for Death”, Dickinson rides in a carriage with the personification of Death, showing the constant presence of death in her life. Because it has become so familiar, death is no longer a frightening presence, but a comforting companion. Despite this, Dickinson is still not above fear, showing that nothing is static and even the most resolute person is truly sure of anything. This point is further proven in “I heard a Fly buzz”, where a fly disrupts the last moment of Dickinson’s life. The fly is a symbol of death, and of uncertainty, because though it represents something certain—her impending death—it flies around unsure with a “stumbling buzz”. This again illustrates the changing nature of life, and even death. “This World is not Conclusion” is Dickinson’s swan song on the subject of afterlife. She confirms all her previous statements, but in a more r...

    Read More

  • Emily Dickinson and Her Poetry

    3199 Words  | 7 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Comparing and Contrasting Dickinson’s Poems, Because I Could Not Stop for Death and I Heard a Fly Buzz- When I Died

    846 Words  | 2 Pages

    Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born on 10th December, 1830, in the town of Amherst, Massachusetts. As a young child, she showed a bright intelligence, and was able to create many recognizable writings. Many close friends and relatives in Emily’s life were taken away from her by death. Living a life of simplicity and aloofness, she wrote poetry of great power: questioning the nature of immortality and death. Although her work was influenced by great poets of the time, she published many strong poems herself. Two of Emily Dickinson’s famous poems, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” and “I Heard a Fly Buzz- When I Died”, are both about life’s one few certainties, death, and that is where the similarities end.

    Read More

  • Literary Analysis of Emily Dickinson's Poetry

    1056 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Themes of Death and Immortality in Emily Dickinson's Poetry

    991 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout Emily Dickinson’s poetry there is a reoccurring theme of death and immortality. The theme of death is further separated into two major categories including the curiosity Dickinson held of the process of dying and the feelings accompanied with it and the reaction to the death of a loved one. Two of Dickinson’s many poems that contain a theme of death include: “Because I Could Not Stop For Death,” and “After great pain, a formal feeling comes.”

    Read More

More about What Is Fame? A Bee

Open Document