LXXVI seems to illustrate the notion that seeing things out of your reach makes them more desirable than they actually are. The poem depicts an individual looking through a barrier upon a table of food for which they have longed for what seems to have been a long time. Upon reaching the table, they find that it is not nearly so satisfying (repulsive, in fact) as seemed from outside. Finally, the narrator concludes that hunger is actually a concept only known to one who yearns for something.
The technique in this piece is more orthodox than what is expected of Dickinson’s writing. The diction lacks her usual ambiguity but rather uses concrete images to illustrate its themes. Words such as lone and hungry depict the sense of longing portrayed by the poem—indeed, hungry is repeated four times throughout the poem. It seems that this sense of loneliness pervades much of Dickinson’s poetry, as she lived a very solitary life. Gerald Kreyche writes that “After Dickinson's education, she almost never left her house, sometimes calling it a place of "captivity," for she was subject to the rules of her parents…” (Kreyche 81). It is certainly no stretch of the imagination that Dickinson often envied the freedom others exercised. It is known, however, that Dickinson found herself becoming more and more reclusive in her life, withdrawing after the loss of relatives or after finishing her education. This may be paralleled in the poem by the narrator discovering that the food is not something that she yearns for after all.
The technique in this piece is more orthodox than what is expected of Dickinson’s writing. The diction lacks her usual ambiguity but rather uses concrete images to illustrate its themes. Words such as lone and hungry depict the sense of longing portrayed by the poem—indeed, hungry is repeated four times throughout the poem. It seems that this sense of loneliness pervades much of Dickinson’s poetry, as she lived a very solitary life. Gerald Kreyche writes that “After Dickinson's education, she almost never left her house, sometimes calling it a place of "captivity," for she was subject to the rules of her parents…” (Kreyche 81). It is certainly no stretch of the imagination that Dickinson often envied the freedom others exercised. It is known, however, that Dickinson found herself becoming more and more reclusive in her life, withdrawing after the loss of relatives or after finishing her education. This may be paralleled in the poem by the narrator discovering that the food is not something that she yearns for after all.