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I had been hungry all the years. My noon had come to dine. I trembling drew the table near

Stanza 1 & 2. Extended Metaphor:- hunger for food = hunger for affection-love/recognition/ acceptance-society > longing to belong. Longing for something. All my life/since birth. Midday = represents mid life. Satisfy hunger/need. My time to dine and belong (chance for acceptance) .

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I had been hungry all the years. My noon had come to dine. I trembling drew the table near

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  1. Stanza 1 & 2 Extended Metaphor:- hunger for food = hunger for affection-love/recognition/ acceptance-society > longing to belong. Longing for something All my life/since birth Midday = represents mid life Satisfy hunger/need My time to dine and belong (chance for acceptance) Social construct-eating seen as social (group) activity. Inversion shows hesitation 82 Hesitation, nervousness, tentativeness, uncertainty Pulled close/opened up to experience, acceptance. Inquisitive yet cautious approach to the unfamiliar - nothing consumed/fulfilled, just examined. Communion – religious symbolism I had been hungry all the years. My noon had come to dine. I trembling drew the table near And touched the curious wine. ’Twas this on tables I had seen When turning hungry home I looked in windows for the wealth I could not hope for mine. Repetition of look/see not able to touch/have> persona is ‘outcast’, isolated, separated, looks in from outside at feasts of others – yearning to belong. observed but never experienced-emphasises estrangement, not belong Plenty/lots of something – seductive/tantalising. Belonging as valuable (wealth) to persona. Barrier – can see but not join Estrangement – unlikelihood of fulfilment of longing...could not be hoped for.

  2. Plenty/lots of something – seductive/tantalising. Belonging as valuable (wealth) to persona. Stanza 3 & 4 1st person pronoun – isolation, outcast unfamiliar connotations morsel, scrap, speck • I did not know the ample bread. • ’Twas so unlike the crumb • The birds and I had often shared • In nature’s dining room. • The plenty hurt me, ’twas so new. • Myself felt ill and odd, • As berry of a mountain bush • Transplanted to the road. Symbolises communion, acceptance, belonging, love contrast Diet has always been natural. Persona gets a sense of belonging from nature.They had accepted this meagre cuisine which they are now suited to, as birds subsist on crumbs so had the persona. Small sphere of belonging Emphasises difference & strangeness Physical pain belonging Excessive consumption Excessive deprivation > over-indulging Psychological dilemma – now that the persona has what they longed for, curiously they find this unappetising, not what they expected. not right, out of place isolation from relationships, religion & detachment from belonging simile of displacement Secluded mountain berry little chance of survival displaced from natural environment – unable to flourish/grow. Life’s banquet, proved painful & indigestible.

  3. Stanza 5 Not really longing anymore/ sudden lost appetite Irony - once we have something, we realise this was not what we really desired - ‘Nor was I hungry, so I found’. • Nor was I hungry, so I found • That hunger was a way • Of persons outside windows • The entering takes away. Experience showed me/came to a realisation Defines persona and all outsiders generalisation Psychological dilemma – should they come to the ‘love-feast’, conform and disassociate from their true identity or focus on belonging to themselves alone; unable to partake? ‘When the persona sees herself as belonging in Nature’s dining room rather than inside the house where the table is laden with the ample food and wine that most people are used to, she is announcing her separation from society’ – conscious decision not to belong. Negative – we lose something when we become like everyone else. Dickinson represents a tension between wanting to ‘belong’ and giving into ‘longing’, too much of anything – compassion, love, affection- can make us ‘ill’, overwhelmed or detached.

  4. Some thinking points? • Has she been hungry (gone without) for so long that her identity has come to be based on being hungry? If so, then food would be a threat to her identity or psychological survival. • Has she internalised the hunger so that the barrier to fulfilment is now a psychological barrier rather than a condition imposed by the outer world? • Do external barriers increase the appetites or desires they frustrate? To rephrase this statement, does or can frustration increase desire to a point where the desire cannot be fulfilled? Would such a situation be ironic? • She compares her feelings about having "plenty" to the situation of a bush which naturally grew on the mountain being planted in the road. Is this a good environment for the bush? Is it likely to flourish in the road? Planting the bush suggests a permanent change; should we apply permanence to the speaker's change from deprivation to plenty? Is whatever is true of the bush's chances of survival or flourishing also true for her?

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