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Emily Dickinson's Heart We Will Forget Him?

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Many authors use their works as an emotional outlet. An emotional outlet is a way for a person to express their emotions through art or a hobby, usually something healthy and non-destructive to themselves or others. Emotional outlets, such as poetry or literature, provide a platform for an author to voice their opinions on topics relevant to themselves or the world around them. The voice is not always found through words, but can be seen within artwork or performances. One particular voice that stands out in American poetry is that of Emily Dickinson. Her poetry is unique is because of its brief nature and rigid scheme, the exact opposite of Walt Whitman, another popular poet in the time period. One of the reasons that Dickinson is so famous …show more content…

We will forget Him!” uses not only the words but the punctuation to comment upon the effect of emotion and logic, alluding to Dickinson’s own struggle with anger and love. The narrator expresses her anger through the use of exclamation points, demanding “Heart! We will forget him!”(1). There is a clear indication that the narrator is wanting intellect to win over her emotions, but that is almost never the case. The narrator assumes forgetting her lover will make the pain better and is angry at her heart for not allowing her to forget him. She wants to forget him as soon as possible “Haste! Lest while you’re lagging” (7), once again using an exclamation point to indicate anger and hurry, wanting the pain to end. The narrator is angry at herself for not being able to forget him and letting him get to her. Dickinson may have used this poem to express her feelings about an unrequited love interest and the pain that comes with it. In this poem, Dickinson is implying that forgetting someone or moving on is a lot harder when it is not certain if the feelings were ever shared. The truth may not be positive, but it is better than uncertainty. The narrator has been hurt somehow by her lover, and is not only angry with him but at herself. Pain makes it harder to forget someone as well. The narrator thinks that if the emotion goes away, so will the pain and the memories, which may be true, but the narrator is not entirely certain. However, she demands her heart to hurry with the process of forgetting, hoping that this solution will

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