FREE ESSAY ON DICKINSON'S USE OF HUMOUR

DICKINSON'S USE OF HUMOUR

While much of Emily Dickinson's poetry has been described as sad or morose, the poetess
did use humor and irony in many of her poems. This essay will address the humor and/ or
irony found in five of Dickinson's poems: Faith is a Fine Invention, I'm Nobody! Who are
you?, Some keep the Sabbath Going to Church and Success Is Counted Sweetest. The attempt
will be made to show how Dickinson used humor and / or irony for the dual purposes of
comic relief and to stress an idea or conclusion about her life and environment expressed
by the poetess in the respective poem.
The most humorous or ironic are some of the shorter poems, such as the four lined stanzas
of Faith is a Fine Invention and Success Is Counted Sweetest. In Faith..., Dickinson
presents a witty and biting satirical look at Faith and its limitations. While it still
amuses readers today, it must be mentioned that this short poem would have had a greater
impact and seriousness to an audience from the period Dickinson lived in. Dickinson was
raised in a strict Calvinist household and received most of her education in her youth at
a boarding school that also followed the American Puritanical tradition she was raised
in. In this short, witty piece Dickinson addresses two of the main obsessions of her
generation: The pursuit of empirical knowledge through science, faith in an all-knowing,
all-powerful Christian god and the debate on which was the more powerful belief. In this
poem Dickinson uses humor to ease her position in the debate on to the reader. Dickinson
uses her ability to write humourously and ironically (as seen in her suggestion of the
use of microscopes) to present a firm, controversial opinion into what could be dismissed
as an irreverent, inconsequential piece of writing.
In Success..., Dickinson's emphasis is less on humor and more on expressing irony. This
poem may be partially auto-biographical in nature. Dickinson made few attempts during her
life to be taken as more than an armature poetess. On one occasion, she sent a collection
of her poems to a correspondent who was also a published poet. His criticism of the poems
devastated Dickinson, and she never made another attempt towards publishing her works. In
Success..., Dickinson reflects on the nature of success and how, ironically, it can be
best appreciated and understood by those who have not achieved it and have no taste of
it. As in Faith..., Dickinson powerfully presents her thoughts in a few lines. The poem
deals only with one, ironic but universal, idea in its short length. It is the bitterness
expressed at this irony (as found it Dickinson's juxtaposition of the words sweetest and
sorest, separated by two lines) that is most felt by the reader.
While the previous poem expresses the poetess' bitterness and sorrow with one aspect of
her life, I'm Nobody! Who Are You? uses humor without irony to address another. In this
poem, Dickinson style appears almost child-like in its of descriptions including frogs
and bogs, as well as the lively energy expressed by the poem through its use of dashes
and brief wording. Dickinson seems to be addressing her spinster, hermit-like existence
(I'm Nobody) and her preference to it. The poetess seems to relate that her situation has
not left her without a sense of humor, but in fact has allowed her to maintain a
child-like outlook on life rather than adapting to the boring norms of her society ( How
dreary - to be - Somebody!). She mocks the conventional need for self-importance through
publicity (How public - like a Frog - / To tell one's name - the livelong June -),
suggesting that the audience isn't that interested ( / To an admiring Bog). She instead
seems to idealize her solitude by creating the mysterious feeling of a secret society of
social outcasts (Don't tell! they'd advertise - you know!). In this poem, she effectively
uses humor to soften a critique of certain members of her society. While this poem is
longer than the other poems discussed, it too is able to express the quality of brevity
and lightness in that it's composition is full of dashes, with even full sentences broken
into short, quick actions that easily roll off of the tongue when spoken aloud (How
dreary - to be - Somebody). The technical composition of this poem is two stanzas,
however, Dickinson is able to refresh the form with her use of dashes and short words to
give it energy and liveliness.
The poem Some Keep the Sabbat Going to Church, is the longest poem discussed in this
essay, composed of three stanzas. When comparing her humorous poems to the other poems
found in this collection, it is found that these poems are the shortest in length. They
are also composed in stanzas, which is not found in all Dickinson's poem. It might be
that in the attempt to keep the nature (if not the subject matter) of the poems
light-hearted, Dickinson purposely chose this traditional and un-challenging form.
In Some..., Dickinson again turns to humor and irony to address issues she has with the
conventions of religion common to her society, as seen in Faith.... Dickinson questions
the sincerity of those who attend Church on Sunday on a regular basis. Through the use of
comparing the conventions of Church (such as the Bell, the Sermon, Dome and Choir) with
her own celebration of the Sabbat through the appreciation of nature, Dickinson
ironically suggests that those in attendance at Church may not be as sincere in their
worship as she is. The poetess' mocks the congregations attendance as being merely for
show and to gain status in the community by doing what is expected of them (God preaches,
a noted Clergyman). As well, she argues with the assumption that attending church alone
will lead towards salvation, suggesting that it is her own actions of finding God in
Nature (And an Orchard, for a Dome) on a regular, constant basis (I'm going all along)
which is the more true path towards salvation. 
The humor in the last poem is not as explicit as found in the other poems discussed, nor
is the irony as directly expressed as in Success ... The irony is first suggested in the
opening lines of Some keep the Sabbat going to Church - / I keep it staying home and
reaches it most explicit form in the closing lines of So instead of getting to Heaven, at
last - I'm going, all along.
It might be that due to the fact this poem addresses social conventions more than actual
spirituality and a belief in God that Dickinson chooses to keep the level of irony lower
than found in Faith... 
The humor found in this poem is less explicit as well. While the contrasts of a Bobolink
for a Choirister and a Orchard for a Done is humourous, in these descriptions Dickinson
appears to be confessing her own individual, private communion with God to the reader.
Thus she does not accentuate the humor in the juxtaposition of the objects in order not
to trivialize her own beliefs, but allows enough humor to enter the description to stamp
the poem with the child-like free spiritedness found in ...Nobody.... Again in this poem,
the poetess' desire for seclusion and unconventionality is expressed eloquently through a
light-handed treatment of the subject matter.
In conclusion, it can be stated the examples of Emily Dickinson's work discussed in this
essay show the poetess to be highly skilled in the use of humor and irony. The use of
these two tools in her poems is to stress a point or idea the poetess is trying to
express, rather than being an end in themselves. These two tools allow her to present
serious critiques of her society and the place she feels she has been allocated into by
masking her concerns in a light-hearted, irreverent tone.