I'm Nobody! Who Are You?

“I’m Nobody! Who Are You?” is an eight-line poem divided into two quatrains, or four-line stanzas. Dickinson identifies herself in the first line as a “Nobody” with a capital “N” and an authorial “I” (Line 1), connecting her personal experiences and thoughts to Pronouns and their importance in this poem. She juxtaposes her nobody status by rhetorically asking, presumably the reader, who they are. This first line has ironic qualities in that the abrupt announcement of being something that is normally negative is exaggerated into a positive. This exaggeration in turn leads to comedic effect and also an unexpected tone of pride. Most “nobodies” do not announce or even know other people to announce their status. In the second line, the speaker narrows her question even further by asking anyone, the reader specifically, if they are also a nobody. She uses dashes around the word “Nobody” to pause and provide emphasis on the word, using a poetic device known as caesura. In the third line, Dickinson assumes the answer from the prior question is a yes and announces that “there’s a pair of us” (Line 3), with the ending punctuation mark an exclamation point, seemingly expressing enthusiasm.