Answer

Description of the Speaker in “Wild nights – Wild nights!” by Emily Dickinson

In the Poem entitled “Wild nights – Wild nights!” by Emily Dickinson, the speaker can be described as a person who is in dire need for an absentee lover as well as a committed lover. In this poem, it be noted that speaker is greatly longing for the simultaneous comfort and wildness of sexual intimacy. The speaker appears to be a person who loves with great passion and who relishes the times spent together with the loved one. For instance, the speaker imagines the marvelous things that could have happened if she or he was with her or his lover.

The employment of the subjective “were I with thee” in the first or initial stanza establishes the entire dilemma associated with the poem, which in turn enables the reader to comprehend the personality of the speaker. It is significant to note that the speaker largely talks about her or his longing for an absentee lover. The speaker imagines the satisfaction that the night could bring in case the lover was around. As such, whereas this stanza evokes the great longing that the speaker is experiencing, it suggests to the reader that the speaker is a person who finds immense pleasure in longing for his or her lover.

Apart from portraying the speaker as a person who loves with passion, the poem also depicts the speaker as a committed lover who is unwilling to let go of her love even when her or his heart is greatly troubled by her or his lover’s absence. The speaker is unable to make a firm decision when it comes to the issue of loving or letting love go. The boat’s image that securely rests in port reveals that the heart of the speaker’s is being hurled around by passion. Even though the speaker’s boat image within the port evokes emotions of comfort and security, it also highlights the different reality faced by the speaker. This reality is that the speaker does not exist within the comfortable port that she envisions, but out on the sea and being tossed around by winds of passion. Nonetheless, this situation does not seem to cause much distress to the speaker. For instance, second stanza, which talks about rowing in Eden and describes Eden’s seas as calm, flawless, and shameless stresses the speaker’s unwavering desire for his or her beloved. Moreover, the employment of the exclamation, “Ah! – the Sea!” by the speaker further highlights the complexity associated with her or his response to her or his own predicament.  The fact that “Ah!” follows the images of Eden and the storm can be interpreted as a cry of pain and pleasure, which only serve to indicate the enormous magnitude of the speaker desire for her or his beloved. 

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