Emily Dickinson Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Emily Dickinson - Essay ExampleIn a tumultuous measure, American writing became introspective and biographical (Casper, 19), and Dickinsons melancholic poetry of the self reflected both her immediate surroundings and her nationality. The mid-nineteenth century was also a time of high expectations for the future, and this was a theme that Dickinson picked up on in her work. The readers expectations play a huge government agency in books, and Dickinson played with them mercilessly, asking why we expect received things and completely blind-siding us. Although it can be argued that our expectations of literature are merely to be entertained, and occasionally provoked, this essay will look at expectations as a motif of literature, both internal and external. This essay will look at five of Dickinsons poems, of varying lengths, styles and subjects, and institute how the poet uses and manipulates the motif of expectation to constantly surprise the reader, in ways both good and bad. It is difficult to date more of Dickinsons work, as her copious output was private, and typically her texts lack titles. The first line of the first poem to be discussed is I had been hungry all the years, and is a perfect introduction to the idea of subverted expectations. The extended par qualified of the poem uses lunch to represent a long anticipation for an event which turns out to be extremely disappointing although it sounds silly, Dickinsons use of rhyme and rhythm creates a pounding tone which reinforces the sense of misfortune, and of high hopes dashed. The vocaliser describes herself as trembling (3) in impatience to eat the food, only to find that it makes her feel ill and unmatched (14), and that Natures dining-room (12) in which she ate before is far more suited to her temperament. This could be an allegory of evolution up, as the speaker fails to mention if she was allowed to return. The final stanza concludes the moral of the story, that the mere fact of not be ingness able to eat creates hunger, which The entering into the new realm takes away (20). The speakers expectations were always fruitless. The repetition of the word hungry grounds the poem, reminding the reader of the animalism of the subject. Punctuation provides the same function in Frequently the woods are pink, a poem which subverts the very notion of expectation itself. The speaker of Frequently expresses wonder at the Wonderful Rotation (11) of the earth, bend everything alternately pink (1) and brown (2). The liberal sprinkling of dashes and exclamation marks five of the former and ternary of the latter, in a poem just twelve lives long induces the reader to pause at certain points in the poem, enhancing the effect of the preceding line. The pauses echo the speakers surprise, and implicitly encourage the reader to ask themselves why do we not find the fast rotation of the earth as impressive and amazing as it is? Extending the question, does being accustomed to a pheno menon necessarily mean that we forget its wonder? The interjection of they tell me (9) increases the sense of wonder, as if the speaker cannot quite believe what they say. Sunrise and sunset are so magical as to be such a Wonderful