Still So Many Questions Left Unanswered
In her article analyzing Emily Dickinson’s poem, “Victory Comes Late,” Katherine Monteiro comments that: “Poem #690 profoundly questions the God who could allow his creation to suffer needlessly” (Monteiro 31). I find it extremely interesting that Dickinson, who attended a Seminary school for a while, has such a cynical view of God. One must wonder if something specific happened in her life at this time to make her feel this way. Did someone die who was close to her? Which poem was written first, “Victory Comes Late” or “Because I could not stop for death;” did she have a negative view and then become more optimistic, or did something happen in her life to make her take on a more pessimistic view point? Monteiro’s analysis, while answering some questions, still leaves so many more unanswered which shows the complexity of the poem.
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Juliana Cox on Still So Many Questions Left Unanswered: I also agree that we are left
Lauren Miller on Still So Many Questions Left Unanswered: I completely agree with you.
I completely agree with you. Monteiro's analysis of the poem definitely helps us answer some questions but not all of them. I think the key here is that we cannot see into Emily Dickinson's mind. For one, she's dead. For two, she seemed to be very secluded about her beliefs--yet she expressed them in her poetry. Maybe the reason why her poem is confusing is because she was confused about her own beliefs in her own mind. Or maybe she did not want us to know what she thought. Perhaps she wanted us to focus on the issue at hand. We will probably never know, but that is the beauty of poetry.
I also agree that we are left with some unanswered questions leaving it up to the reader to make thier own con
I also agree that Monteiro makes me have more questions than answers about this poem. I think that it is very important that we condsider Dickinson's actually personal life when evaluating her work because much of her poetry was personal; however I think that Monteiro takes it so far as to somewhat distort the poem for me. Like Lauren said, I don't think we will ever know the true meanings of her poems.