IM+NOBODY+WHO+ARE+YOU..BIOGRAPHICAL+THEORY

I'm nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too? Then there's a pair of us--don't tell! They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody! How public, like a frog to tell your name the livelong day to an admiring bog!

Emily Dickinson was a lady who lived her whole life inside her house, rarely left and only had a few visitors. For this people thought she was very mysterious and never got to know a lot about her. When analyzing this poem I used the Biographical literary theory. This theory has to deal with how the poet’s life and thoughts influence their poems. In the first stanza Emily talks about how she is a nobody and asks someone if they are too. Then she goes on to say if they are a nobody, don’t tell because they would be banished. This explains why Emily chose to stay in her house and away from society because she cherished her individualism and feared going out of her house and joining society would take this away. Than in the next stanza Emily goes on to explain why she wouldn’t want to be somebody and stay in the house all day. She compares being public to being like a frog hopping around and looking for the next bog. This poem gives you a little insight into why Emily had decided to live in her house for such a long time and never leave.