Are we alone?

Pain. We all experience pain. The young and the old, the rich and the poor. It’s unfortunate and inevitable. There’s no escaping it. This is just what Dickinson felt in many of her poems. Pain. Even though Dickinson lived a private life which escaped much of society, she was not able to escape the pain that comes along with being merely human. In much of her writing she talks about her feelings and her thoughts. She shows her true heart in her writing and doesn’t hold anything back. She is vulnerable and open, which is why I think we can all relate with her to an extent. We are all human, so we all understand pain.

One of the poems that really struck me was her poem Griefs. This is what she wrote:

I measure every grief I meet

With analytic eyes;

I wonder if it weighs like mine,

Or has an easier size.

I wonder if they bore it long,

Or did it just begin?

I could not tell the date of mine,

It feels so old a pain

I wonder if it hurts to live,

And if they have to try,

And whether, could they choose between,

They would not rather die.

I wonder if when years have piled –

Some thousands – on the cause

Of early hurt, if such a lapse

Could give them any pause;

Or would they go on aching still

Through centuries above,

Enlightened to a larger pain

By contrast with the love.

The grieved are many, I am told;

The reason deeper lies, –

Death is but one and comes but once,

And only nails the eyes.

There’s grief of want, and grief of cold, –

A sort they call ‘despair;’

There’s banishment from native eyes,

In sight of native air.

And though I may not guess the kind

Correctly, yet to me

A piercing comfort it afford

In passing Calvary,

To note the fashions of the cross,

Of those that stand alone,

Still fascinated to presume

That some are like my own.

This poem is so honest. That’s one of the reasons I think I really like it. I can hear where she is coming from. Most people would be able to relate to Dickinson in losing a loved one. Or if you personally haven’t lost a loved one, you probably know someone who has lost somebody important to them and have seen the sorrow they’ve gone through. What Dickinson is getting at in this poem is the amount of grief everyone goes through. There is no way of really knowing how much grief and sorrow someone else is experiencing. We may try to compare our pain to others and wonder whose is greater. It’s as if Dickinson is looking for someone else who has experienced the weightiness of pain she has felt. She’s doesn’t want to be alone in what she is feeling.

The last two lines of the poem show her surprise that others could be carrying the same heavy burden she is carrying. I think many times we think we are the only one’s going through something tough. The common phrase among teenagers or adolescents is that their parents just don’t understand them. Their parents don’t know what it’s like to be a teenager. Although this is somewhat of a cliché way to make this comparison, it works. There’s a great comfort in knowing that you are not alone. Comfort in knowing that someone else really has felt the same way you have before. I personally have found great relief in knowing someone else understands me. They understand where I’m coming from. They may not be able to relate to me completely 100%, but the similarity in grief has made the grief itself more bearable.

Since Dickinson spent most of her time by herself, she could only speculate as to what other people were experiencing. This poem is a whole bunch of wondering statements. She wonders the severity and depth of others pain and how it relates to what she is experiencing. But since she doesn’t have many relationships with other people, she can never fully answer her questions. She’s stuck in a place of isolation, because she can’t relate to others about her suffering. That thought alone makes me very sad for her.