An Explication of Emily Dickson’s “I am Nobody”

• Before we interpret this poem, Let’s read it altogether.

I’m Nobody! Who are you?

Are you — Nobody — too?

Then there’s a pair of us!

Don’t tell! they’d advertise — you know!

How dreary — to be — Somebody!

How public — like a Frog –

To tell one’s name — the livelong June –

To an admiring Bog!

According to my impressions on this poem, at the first quatrin it emphasizes that the society in which we live tries to convert us to living things having similar characteristics in terms of structure of ideas by restricting our freedoms or applying censorship. Whenever we push the frontiers of thoughts adopted or imposed by the most members of the society, we are left to face loneliness. Wherever we live, we frequently experience to become a member of a small groups just like friendship or big groups just like family, and whether we want it or not, almost all of us realize that we or someone else are exposed to have ineffective role by excluding things that make us who we are. I thing in this part, the poet criticize forms of groups that do not allow diverse perspectives and that cause us to clasiffy as “they”, “you” or “we”, drawing borders in relationships.

I want to talk about a little bit about allegories in the poem. When we are excluded from a group because of our different or incompetible sides, we remain as somebody for this group, but in fact being somebody is more valuable than being a member adopting the common ideas, characteristics, leading the poet to use the repetitive sounds of frogs as an allegory. In addition, this poem emphasizes at the end that the community eradicate individuality just like a bog.