Examine the Arguments Forwarded by Bertram in Her Article and Explore the Ways in Which These Ideas Are Reflected in Dickinson’s Poem ‘a Word’

Bertram begins her article asking the reader ‘Does a poem have one meaning, that lies inside it waiting to be decoded, or are there many possible interpretations?’ Relating this question to ‘A Word’ I believe that there are many different interpretations to this poem. From finding out about Emily Dickinson’s life, I know that she was never heard of until she died. This poem is talking about how meaningful and powerful words can be, however it is ironic as Dickinson hid her words when she was alive and she didn’t give her words any power or existence. In this poem, she personifies a word and gives it a life and I feel that this poem relates to Dickinson’s life, as in the beginning of the poem she tells us that once the word has served its purpose it no longer is important. This relates to Dickinson’s life as her words served their purpose of giving Dickinson pleasure and happiness. At the end of the poem she says’ I say it just begins to live that day’. After Dickinson’s words served their purpose to her, Dickinson thought they were dead, however after she died the words began to live as they gave pleasure to so many people in the world and that is when they actually started living.
​ Another interpretation to this poem is that Dickinson is trying to give the reader a message about life. She is saying that we should think twice before we use our words because they may seem dead after we use them but they will always return back to life. I think that she is trying to tell us that words can have very deep meaning and in society today words are not valued and can be used in very harsh ways and these words will come back to bother us if we do not use them respectably and appropriately, and not to harm others. For example, insults are not insults until they are said and a compliment is not a compliment until it is said so these words are all down the person who is going to say them and that is why we should think about our words and how we use them.
Bertram then goes... [continues]

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