Close Reading: "I'm Nobody! Who Are You?" a Poem by Emily Dickinson

(I originally published this article in my Substack newsletter, Reflections by Samantha Lord, in January 2025.)

The primary theme of “I’m Nobody! Who Are You?” (1861) is the meaninglessness and superficiality of social status. As with many Emily Dickinson poems, the poet is the speaker.

Full text of the poem:

“I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us – don’t tell!
They’d banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!”

My Close Reading/Analysis

Stanza 1

“I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us – don’t tell!
They’d banish us, you know.”

Dickinson rises above the nonsense of status obsession and the most superficial aspects of identity by embracing being what some people would call a “nobody.” She portrays a sense of looking for community by asking readers if they’re a “nobody,” too. Dickinson mentions partly ironically that they can conspire together to hide their “nobody” status, as society will treat them poorly if they reveal it With the end-line rhyme of lines 1 and 2 (the words “you” and “too”), Dickinson emphasizes the possibility that the reader is a “nobody” just like her, and they have an affinity.

Emily Dickinson used shorter lines than many other 19th-century poets. They are usually about thee feet in length. If you’re unfamiliar with poetic terminology, each foot has two syllables. The relatively short lines create a sense of immediacy in her poems. We feel like she is directly speaking to us in a confidential manner, as if between friends. I feel that is exactly the tone she intends to create in this poem. She knows that this piece will appeal most to people just like her, who feel other people see her as a “nobody.”

Stanza 2

“How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!”

In this stanza, Dickinson reflects that perhaps it’s better to be a nobody than a “somebody.” She is disdainful of people who are obsessed with their statuses and feel the need to constantly show or communicate their status in the public eye. By comparing this kind of person to a “frog,” she is diminishing their importance and humbling them. The word “bog” reflects on how unthinking and conformist the public can be.