This is an essay I wrote for my American Literature II (English 322) course at the University of Kansas. I really was impressed with the connections I made between Emily Dickenson and modern day phenomena.

Emily Dickenson’s poem, “I’m Nobody! Who Are You?” is a short poem in which the narrator talks about being nobody: not being important or public about their lives. The narrator is worried about being banished for being nobody. Then she talks about how it is dull to be a public person, with everyone knowing all about you. She compares being well known to being like a frog, which constantly chirps, “I am here!” in a bog all day. The poem develops from hesitantly admitting that the narrator is nobody to actually relishing that is she nobody instead of somebody.

I like this poem because it brings up issues of privacy compared to being public. I am a private person so I relate well to the narrator. In the first stanza of the poem the narrator recognizes someone else who is nobody and is excited to not be the only one. They bring up the fact that the people who are somebody would banish the people who are nobody. This is interesting because it shows the difference between people who are very interested in a public life and those who are not. Public people do not understand those that wish to remain private, so they point them out and make them outcasts. Over the centuries, people have constantly been out-casted because they are different and the narrator feels the same will happen to them if the somebodies find out. I do wonder why the narrator cares so much when they seem to not like these people who want to be somebody anyway.

In the second stanza, the narrator talks of how dull it would be to be a public person. Both the narrator and I agree that it is “dreary to be somebody!” When you share every aspect of yourself and become entirely public, it leaves nothing else to learn about you. This can make a person uninteresting or dreary. It is the secrets and the ability to constantly learn new things about another person that make them interesting and a good friend or companion. The narrator knows this and therefore compares the public person to a frog. A frog is a simple creature that sits all day in a swamp chirping to find a mate. The frog that chirps the loudest gets the most females.

This poem, although it is over 100 years old, is still relevant today with the way the internet allows people to become very public with their lives. Places like Facebook and MySpace (personal networking sites) have become the ultimate “public” place. People can show every personal aspect of their lives, down to what they are doing at that very minute. Things that should remain personal, such as engagements and family deaths, have now become everyday occurrences by users of Facebook. People who announce all about themselves and share private information really bother me. There are aspects of their lives that I do not want to know, nor do I care about. This is another reason why I really like this poem. The narrator is another person who wants to be private and does not share the enthusiasm that most share in learning personal information. Relating to the last two lines of the poem, it seems as if the person who complains the most on Facebook gets the most attention. Certain members of Facebook feel the need to share everything about themselves. They are “telling their name the livelong day / to an admiring bog!”

Another instance of public “telling their name” is with celebrities. Celebrities have no privacy. Everywhere they go they are followed and every aspect of their personal life is made known. Here the celebrities are the frogs and the fans are the admiring bog. Again I agree with the narrator in feeling that it is dreary to be public. I have no interest in hearing all about celebrities and when I see articles and magazines all about them, I get frustrated because I don’t care. I feel that it is a waste of time and energy to report on information such as whether Jennifer Aniston has really gotten over Brad Pitt or if Britney Spears has lost weight or not.

Overall, I really like this poem because of how well I relate to the narrator. I almost feel like the narrator is talking directly to me by seeing that I am nobody too. Both the narrator and I are private people who don’t understand the need to be public. We realize the difference in thought between the nobodies and the sombodies and recognize that those who are “somebody” do not understand those who want to be private. The narrator and I think it is boring to share all of one’s private information – leaving nothing to learn later – and we frankly don’t care much about the private information they choose to share.


The poem:


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!

By Emily Dickenson