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Emily DickinsonThe Only News I Know
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1929A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Seclusion and Isolation
The primary theme of Dickinson’s “The Only News I know” is the isolation resulting from her self-imposed seclusion. Dickinson notes that she has limited access to news and information about her world, save for the news she receives from “Immortality” (Line 3) or about eternal things. Similarly, she does not see any “Shows” (Line 4) at the theater since she does not leave her home or traverse any street except the street of her own “Existence” (Line 9). Finally, Dickinson acknowledges her lack of companions. She states, “The Only One I meet / Is God” (Lines 7-8). Having consciously chosen a reclusive lifestyle, Dickinson portrays herself throughout the poem as someone utterly devoid of human interaction and knowledge about the outside world.
However, rather than portray such isolation as a source of mental anguish and suffering, Dickinson never passes judgment on her experiences. Within “The Only News I know,” there are no indications that Dickinson is anything but at peace with her social situation. In the final stanza, she informs her audience, referred to as “You” (Line 12), that she will tell them if she discovers any “Other News” (Line 10) or “Admirable Show” after her death. The downplaying of eternal life after death as another form of “news” highlights Dickinson’s unique perspective. Looking forward to the news, sights, and information of the afterlife, she has little interest in the affairs of the world and feels no regret having isolated herself from that world and its less than “admirable” entertainment. She feels no dread about death or her solitude; her communications with God and the mysterious “You” are seemingly enough. Her wry assertion that she will somehow communicate with her audience after she is dead reveals that Dickinson is not actually opposed to communication with others, provided there is something “new” and worthwhile of which to speak. Thus, her seclusion and isolation are a deliberate choice to reject the pointlessness of daily pleasantries and society.
Acceptance of Death
As in many other Dickinson poems, death in “The Only News I know” is a mere fact of life to be accepted. Dickinson often used death as a symbol for “change” or a “transformation of an identity” (“Emily Dickinson’s Joke about Death,” Eleanore Lewis Lambert, pg. 8), a simple shift from one form of life to another, and spoke of physical death in euphemisms like “eternity,” “immortality,” and “resurrection” (see Symbols & Motifs section). As someone who rarely expressed “difficult experiences in wholly negative terms” (Lambert 9), Dickinson viewed the topic of death with her “special brand of humor,” both respecting “death’s solemnity and [celebrating] its relative insignificance” (Lambert 10).
Accordingly, in “The Only News I know,” Dickinson treats death as nothing more than a mundane moment in a person’s life, as well as an opportunity for knowledge. While alive, she imagines death, digesting the “news” (Line 1) and “bulletins” (Line 2) she finds in her considerations of “Immortality” (Line 3). She anticipates death, not from a sense of dread or excitement but from a curiosity to know what lies beyond life. She is interested in the “learning that comes after death” (Lambert 18), promising her readers that, if she discovers any “Other News” (Line 10) and or “Admirable Show” (Line 11) after dying, she will tell them and satisfy their curiosity. Therefore, Dickinson downplays death and eternity as just another form of “news” or information that can only be accessed when one has “traversed” (Line 9) or completed their earthly “Existence” (Line 9). In this poem, there are no references to the pain of death; instead, Dickinson characterizes the end of life in death as a pleasant walk or journey down a “street” (Line 8). Unafraid of dying and curious about eternity, Dickinson easily and totally accepts the fate of all human beings.
Time and Liminal Spaces
Although Dickinson does not complain about the near-complete isolation created by her choice to remove herself from society, this poem does reveal its effects on her life and sense of time. As she stays home, reflecting on eternity, her life becomes monotonous and lacks structure. Instead of shows, she sees “Tomorrow and Today—/ Perchance Eternity” (Lines 5-6). The wording here shows how her sense of time has become confused. As she anticipates the future end of her life, she first mentions “tomorrow” or the immediate future. She next mentions her present, “today,” and then skips to eternity. She exists within liminal spaces of the endless in-between, in which her sense of time is both moment-to-moment and an eternity. Time, as she perceives it, is no longer linear, and the days bleed into each other, even into eternity. In addition to this disordered representation of time, Dickinson describes her own life in strangely removed terms. She refers to her life on earth as “Existence” (Line 9), a very personally removed expression that implies only the bare minimum of living. She merely exists, like any other life form, and when she dies, she will have finally “traversed” (Line 9) or completed that existence. Although largely content in her social seclusion, Dickinson does acknowledge the peculiar effects of monotony on her perception of time and her own life.
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