Emily Dickinson The Feet of People Walking Home
One of Emily Dickinson's poems, formally titled "The feet of people walking home," is of some interest in its own merit. Unlike some of Dickinson's other poems, such as the ones that exist among other versions due to a few dissimilarities, this poem is duplicated verbatim. To the untrained eye, this triviality would often be overlooked, were it not for the fact that Emily Dickinson had not intended on publishing many of her poems. Why, then, did she duplicate this poem? Perhaps a more in-depth analysis of the poem, as well as the current events in Dickinson's life, would answer this query. Estimated to have been written in the year 1858, the poem begins its first stanza by conveying the emotions of gaiety and joyfulness, which are associated with passage to heaven. A much more somber note pervades the second stanza, in which Dickinson uses metaphors to compare the entrance to heaven with the act of theft. The third stanza combines the previous two by hinting at the theory that those who are already in heaven do not want more people entering heaven's gates, because that would diminish the high status that heaven and angels hold. The tone in the first stanza is of joyousness and excitement, as people make their way to heaven. Di
Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1981. Perhaps the duplication process was enacted merely to separate "The feet of people walking home" from the other, much shorter poem. The third stanza continues by combining the previous two, as well as taking into consideration the feelings of the angels, whom Dickinson believes are enraged at the "extortion" of their honor and magnificence. It could be argued that this is the point in the humans' lives (or deaths, or afterlives, depending on how one looks at it) when they reach the pinnacle of happiness, for they have finally entered heaven. Could it be, then, that the phrase "My Classics" roughly translates to "My Father" (line 21)? It is interesting to note here that Dickinson loved her father dearly, but that love was not reciprocal. Reading, Massachusetts: Perseus Books, 1988. The first interest is the purpose for the poem's duplication. The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson. ckinson uses the words "gayer," "hallelujah," and "singing" to emphasize the uplifting feeling here. Dickinson uses the words "extorted," "larceny," and "death" to emphasize the crime that is personified here. Shortly after her father's death, Emily Dickinson writes in one of her letters, "I am glad there is Immortality - but would have tested it myself - before entrusting him" (Wolff 64). Referring back to the first stanza, Dickinson subtly states that the status of angels would no longer be as honorable or magnificent as it is now if everyone were to acquire wings, achieve immortality, and enter heaven. Boston, Massachusetts: Little, Brown and Company, 1961.
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