Dickinson's "Poor little heart!" Analysis

When I read the poem "Poor little heart!" by Emily Dickinson, I felt myself relating to it very easily. Although my interpretation might not be that of others, I feel that Dickinson wrote a very intriguing and truthful poem. Speaking from a third person's perspective and referring to the heart of another woman, in the first stanza of "Poor little heart!," Dickinson writes of the "poor little heart" being forgotten by a man, and exclaims that the woman should not care or be upset (Dickinson). In the second stanza, the "poor little heart" has been abandoned by this man, and the woman is informed that she should be carefree and keep her head up high (Dickinson). The third stanza is of the speaker talking directly to the woman now, saying that he would never break her heart, and he wants her to let him in. He asks if she would "credit" him, or if she would trust him and grant him his wishes of making her his (Dickinson). In the fourth stanza, however, the "poor little heart" is now a "gay little heart," which I took to mean that since this man has come into the woman's life, she is now happy and extremely blissful; her heart is happy now (Dickinson). However, in the second part of the last stanza, "Like morning glory Thou’ll wilted be; thou’ll wilted be!" (Dickinson). I believe that this is referring to the man breaking the woman's heart once again. The whole poem is like a cycle. The woman has a broken heart, and she tries to stay strong but feels lost. She then meets a man who promises that he will always be there for her and will never hurt her and, gradually, she believes him and falls in love. However, he was deceitful, and he ends up leaving her and breaking her heart, leaving it sad and lonely once again (Dickinson).

In a literary criticism written by Mary Ellen Snodgrass, it is written that Dickinson was known for her poems like this. She was seen as feminist, and she was very bold and brazen in expressing her opinions regarding women, men, and love (Snodgrass). This included her views on how men should not necessarily be viewed as heroes or the stronger gender as they previously had been shown; this idea is kind of expressed in "Poor little heart!" as Dickinson elaborates on the lies and untrustworthy behavior shown in man (Dickinson). Throughout the short poem, the woman being addressed in the work of literature is constantly told to stay strong and to not let this man defeat her, even though he broke her heart (Dickinson). This is another example of how Dickinson may have been projecting her feminist ideas; she believed that women should not rely on men to make them happy, but women should instead be strong enough to make their own decisions and care for themselves (Snodgrass). By telling the woman to not allow the degrading acts of a man to affect her, but to instead defy his actions and stand proud, Dickinson expressed her views very clearly (Dickinson). She also managed to include the softer side of the heart, though, when the man and the woman briefly fall in love. Altogether, Dickinson wrote a wonderful poem that truly does even today express the cycle of falling in and out of love, and while producing this great piece of literature, Dickinson was also successful in proclaiming her views on feminism.

WORKS CITED

Dickinson, Emily. "Poor little heart!" Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and Hundreds More. 2011. Web. 21 Mar. 2011. .

Snodgrass, Mary Ellen. "Dickinson, Emily." Encyclopedia of Feminist Literature. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= EFL136&SingleRecord=True (accessed March 21, 2011).