Short Responses to Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson

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I gave myself to him: Explain how Dickinson used the extended metaphor of a business transaction to explore the concept of belonging in this poem. Throughout this poem, Dickinson uses the language of a business transaction to create a feeling of detachment and dispassion for belonging in the context of a relationship. While a man-woman relationship as described in the poem is generally thought of as warm, personal and inviting, Dickinson deliberately uses words and phrases such as ‘contract’, ‘debt’ and ‘mutual risk’ to subvert this expectation. In the first line of the second stanza, the speaker expresses fear that “the Wealth might disappoint’, that is to say that she feels a sense of pressure from the other party to live up to a standard to belong in the relationship, similar to the way a customer holds a businessman to a certain standard when buying a product. The constant reference to this mercenary language makes it clear that the speaker feels that belonging is not a positive, warm and joyous experience for her, but rather, a cold and clinical one, that leaves her ‘insolvent’. I had been hungry all the years: Explain how Dickinson employs contrast in this poem. Emily Dickinson takes the reader on a journey over the course of this poem, from an initial desire to belong, through the experience of belonging, and finally to a reflection of how she feels about that experience. There is a clear contrast between the language at the beginning of the poem and the language at the end. This poem employs the allegory of hunger to describe the speaker’s initial desire to belong. The speaker says, “I had been hungry all the years / My noon had come to dine.” The use of the word “dine” suggests a higher class, exquisite experience, which reflects the speaker’s longing to belong. Describing belonging as ‘wealth’ as in the second stanza suggests that the speaker
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