Emily Dickinson's The Feet Of People Walking Home

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One of Emily Dickinson’s poems, formally titled “The feet of people walking home,” is of some interest in its own merit. Unlike some of Dickinson’s other poems, such as the ones that exist among other versions due to a few dissimilarities, this poem is duplicated verbatim. To the untrained eye, this triviality would often be overlooked, were it not for the fact that Emily Dickinson had not intended on publishing many of her poems. Why, then, did she duplicate this poem? Perhaps a more in-depth analysis of the poem, as well as the current events in Dickinson’s life, would answer this query. Estimated to have been written in the year 1858, the poem begins its first stanza by conveying the emotions of gaiety and joyfulness, which are associated …show more content…

Dickinson metaphorically describes the angels’ method of keeping people out by saying that the angels (including Dickinson’s ancestors) “veil their faces” so that humans cannot easily find their way to heaven (line 21). (Though it is true that each of Franklin’s versions regarding this poem, as well as the original manuscripts, contain the word “vail,” Dickinson has proven in at least one of her letters that she has a tendency to misspell words, including “veil.” Taken in context, “veil” seems more appropriate.) Wolff makes a note that “concealment” is a recurring motif in Dickinson’s poems when she says, “Rage is entirely separated from ‘my father, Edward Dickinson’: it finds expression only in the poetry, directed toward a ‘Father’ in Heaven Whose face we never see and Whose voice we never hear” (64). Could it be, then, that the phrase “My Classics” roughly translates to “My Father” (line 21)? It is interesting to note here that Dickinson loved her father dearly, but that love was not reciprocal. Shortly after her father’s death, Emily Dickinson writes in one of her letters, “I am glad there is Immortality – but would have tested it myself – before entrusting him” (Wolff 64). Despite her love and respect for her father, she perhaps feared the possibility that her father would make efforts after his own death to prevent her from entering

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