Pessimism

I think why Emily Dickinson’s topics are often about loneliness, isolation, and death is because she often encounters these things. It was said that she lived in a house by herself and isolated in herself from the society in the later years of her life. According to her, the reason why she locked herself up is because all her friends are gone. Because all her friends had died, she experienced loneliness and the feeling of losing her friends (death). Because she locked herself up, she experienced isolation. Emily Dickinson’s subject matters are mainly what she experienced in her life. I think the narrator (Offred) of the Handmaid’s Tale experienced things similar to that of Emily Dickinson’s. Offred was separated from Luke (her husband) and her child. She was isolated in a place where she has no real friends. She also experienced the feeling of losing someone, because her husband and child are very likely to be dead. Emily Dickinson and Offred are both in a circumstance where they have no friends of someone they know. I think the circumstances that the two women are in have some differences. Offred forbidden to make friends, Emily Dickinson is not. Emily Dickinson CAN make friends, but she doesn’t want to, because she thinks that people worth making friends with are all gone.