Emily Dickinson Informal Diction

Poetry is a literary work that is meant to evoke an emotional response from the reader. A poet uses creativity and imagination to capture the reader’s attention. Most poems are concise, shorter than other literary works, but never short of substance. Often times poetry can take simple, ordinary details and give them new meaning and significance that may not have been appreciated otherwise. In Emily Dickinson’s poem, “I’m Nobody! Who are you?” Dickinson uses several different literary techniques that capture the reader’s attention and trigger an emotional response.
First of all, Emily Dickinson chose to use informal diction in this poem. Informal diction is the use of informal, conversational language, or slang to give the poem
a more genuine composition (Clugston, 2010). For example, she writes;
“Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! they’d advertise, you know.”
She uses the phrase “you know” just as anyone would in a casual conversation. This gives the reader the feeling that the narrator could be speaking to him/her directly. In addition to the colloquial language, Dickinson chooses to speak directly to the reader by using pronouns such as “you” and “us” (Clugston, 2010).
This is a calculated decision, designed to connect the reader to the poem on an emotional level. Dickinson must have realized that everyone has felt feelings of rejection and isolation, therefore she focused her writing to relate to the reader and speak to those personal experiences. In an early evaluation of Dickinson’s work, a critic wrote, “This poetry is as characteristic of our life as our business enterprise, our political turmoil, our demagoguism, or our millionaires” (Wells,
1929). Emily Dickinson uses irony quite cleverly throughout this short poem. The poem begins with a kind of introduction, during which the narrator claims to be nobody, and connects with the reader by establishing that the two have something in common. Both of them share a similar notion about how the world perceives them as expressed in these first few lines;
“I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you-Nobody-Too?
Then there is a pair of us!”
The poem begins with the exclamation of “I’m Nobody!” as if the narrator is proud of that label. And the excitement continues to build as the narrator asks about the other “nobody”. It sounds as though they are pleased to have this connection, they are outcasts, but honestly, no one strives to be an outcast in real life.
This poem also contains a bit of satire as it takes on a slight mocking tone when referring to the “somebody”. Dickinson shows the narrator’s contempt for the popular, attention grabbing, social types of individuals that she refers to as “somebodies” with a sarcastic tone.
“How dreary-to be-Somebody!
How public-like a frog-
To tell one’s name-the livelong June-
To an admiring bog!”
She also shows some level of aversion for the fans and the followers who admire these “somebodies”.
However, some might argue that she was trying to identify and make sense of a frame of mind she did not understand. One reviewer wrote, “Because Dickinson is Dickinson, she sees “oppositely”, love (and gender) can only be understood in relation to its opposite” (Pollak, 1999). Even to this day academics still discuss and argue over the paradoxes and obscurities of Dickinson 's life and work. There is one fact about Emily Dickinson that is not up for debate and that is Dickinson’s personal desire for privacy. She was not a well-known poet until after her death in 1886 (Moore,
1933).

References
Clugston, R. (2010). Journey Into Literature. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.
Last Name, F. M. (Year). Article Title. Journal Title, Pages From - To.
Last Name, F. M. (Year). Book Title. City Name: Publisher Name.
Moore, M. (1933, January). Emily Dickinson. Poetry, 41(4), 219-226. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20578872
Pollak, V. (1999, January). Attempting the Impossible. The Women 's Review of Books, 16(4), 13-14. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4023108
Wells, A. M. (1929, November). Early Criticism of Emily Dickinson. American Literature, 1(3), 243-259. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2920135