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You can read the speaker's hunger and inability to eat literally, so that "I had been hungry all
the years" becomes a poem about anorexia or a poem about poverty and homelessness. Or you can read hunger metaphorically, as standing for the speaker's desire for what
she lacks and what others possess; the specific lack may not be not important. Whichever way you read the poem,
it is a definition poem although Dickinson changes the definition format a little. She
places the word to be defined ("hunger is") at the end of the poem and uses a past tense verb, rather than the
present tense; look at the last three lines ("hunger was").
The speaker's circumstances changed that she is able to eat. However, now that she is no longer hungry,
she has learned that the food she was denied (or denied herself, if you think she suffers from anorexia) is not as satisfying
or fulfilling as she imagined while she was hungry.
Stanza one
The first line is straightforward and easily understood.
- Why does the speaker describe her abililty to eat as "noon"? Think of the association between noon and food.
- Why does she say "dine," rather than "eat"? How do the words differ?
- What does her "trembling" indicate about her physical and/or her emotional state?
- Why does she merely "touch" the wine? Is that what most hungry people would do? Does the word suggest
that it takes a great deal or very little to satisfy? Or is something else being implied about being satisfied once we
obtain what we yearned or hungered for?
- Curious has a number of meanings: (1) eager to learn or know, (2) unnecessarily
inquiring or prying, (3) careful, accurate, (4) strange, unusual.
In what sense(s) is Dickinson using the word? Also, is the speaker curious, or is the wine curious?
Stanza two
This stanza continues an image from stanza one, the table, and introduces the image of windows,
which reappears in the last stanza. Note how her hunger (lack) is insisted upon throughout the poem rather
than the eating (fulfillment or satisfaction of the hunger).
- What does the speaker mean that she "looked in windows"? Is she literally excluded from the buildings whose windows she looks in, like a
homeless person. Or is this is a metaphor for being excluded, e.g., for lacking fulfillment or possesion?
If you don't see this as an exclusion image, how do you read it? Perhaps she is a voyeur (peeping tom)?
- What are the connotations of the word "wealth" which she perceives others as having? Is there a contrast between their wealth and her own condition? Does the
word "wealth" suggest that, at this point in her experience, she thinks their condition is preferable to hers?
Stanza three
- She contrasts the "ample bread" which she now possesses with the "crumb." What is the relationship of a crumb to
bread? Why does she describe the bread as "ample"? (ample: abundant, more than enough). Is she unable to eat (be
fulfilled) because she does not possess enough of what she lacked? Or is her inability to eat (experience the satisfaction she imagined or desired while
hungry) inherent in the nature of satisfaction or fulfillment itself?
- Is "Nature's dining-room" to be taken literally, that she was homeless, living on the street or
in nature somewhere? or is it a metaphor for the state of not having? Does "Nature's dining-room"
contrast ironically with the "wealth" she saw on tables looking through the windows?
- Are the birds literal, and did she share her little
food with them? Or is Dickinson using a metaphor for how little the speaker had? Or does it mean
something else altogether?
- The speaker didn't know how different the "ample bread" and the "crumb" were because she
had never experienced both. Why are they different? Consider the following possibilities:
- Is there a difference between the real and the imagined? Are the satisfactions or fulfillment of
one greater than the other?
- Is this a difference between the desire and the fulfillment? Is the fulfillment or possession we desire greater than
the fulfillment or possession can actually provide?
- Has she been hungry (gone without) for so long that
her identity has come to be based on being hungry? If so, then food would be a threat to her identity or
psychological survival.
- Has she internalized the hunger so that the barrier to fulfillment is now a psychological
barrier rather than a condition imposed by the outer world?
- Can some of the readings suggested above be combined or are they mutually exclusive?
- Do external barriers increase the appetites or desires they frustrate? To rephrase this statement, does or can
frustration increase desire to a point where the desire cannot be fulfilled? Would such a situation be
ironic?
Stanza four
Her explanation for why the "plenty hurt" is that it is unfamiliar ("new"). Is this really the explanation? Does the rest of the stanza support it?
- She compares her feelings about having "plenty" to the situation of a bush which naturally grew
on the mountain being planted in the road. Is this a good environment for the bush? Is it likely to
flourish in the road? Planting the bush suggests a permanent change; should we apply
permanence to the speaker's change from deprivation to plenty? Is whatever is true of the bush's chances
of survival or flourishing also true for her?
- The mountain bush that grows from the berry is in the wrong environment, i.e., not in its natural place; in other words, the road
is foreign or alien to it. Does the bush image suggest that plenty is alien to the speaker's nature? Is her natural place outside looking
in through windows rather than being inside eating at the table?
- The bush growing in the road is separate and isolated. Does this image continue the idea of the image of the speaker looking in through
windows? Is that too an image of separateness or isolation? Note in stanza two the speaker uses the word "lone."
- If the bush represents the speaker, does the road stand for society? or for something else?
Stanza five
The speaker realizes that she is no longer hungry, i.e., she no longer desires what she
lacked "all the years," now that it is available to her. Based on the knowledge acquired from the change
in her status, she finally defines "hunger" as
a way
Of persons outside windows,
The entering takes away.
Using this definition, what do you think Dickinson is saying about desire and fulfillment? about lack and
satisfaction?
Does this poem support calling Dickinson the poet of exclusion?
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