Homely anguish

In Emily Dickinson's short poem I like a look of Agony, there are very few clues to pick up on to use in analyzing the meaning of the poem. There are only fourty words, so she must have been particularly focused on each one's exact purpose if she wanted the reader to come to an understanding from it. There is one particular word that jumps out to me in this poem: 'homely,' in the last line. Most of the words are built around pain or suffering and are strongly violent, but for some reason Dickinson chose to call anguish 'homely.'

The speaker of the poem is expressing her feelings on dishonesty in this poem, though she doesn't say specifically what kind of dishonesty or whose dishonesty she dislikes. However, the word 'homely' casts a kind of light on this situation. The speaker's point is that death and extreme suffering cannot be faked. The seriousness of those situations where one is under intense pain is not something a person can manipulate or call upon to be convenient when the time comes. Ultimately, those moments are the moments that all humans can share and relate to. This is where 'homely' reveals its meaning. By mentioning "homely Anguish," Dickinson suddenly and surprisingly tones down the intensity of the whole poem. She builds up the "look of Agony" from the beginning, portraying it as the ultimate quality that cannot be controlled by the mind of an individual, and then, in the finale, calls it plain and ordinary.

Just as important to this poem as agony is honesty. Dickinson is associating anguish (which represents honesty in the speaker's eyes) with homeliness. This suggests that the reality of the world, or maybe the reality without the deception and trickery of dishonest people, is actually just simple, ordinary, and maybe even a little ugly. All of this pain stuff seems dramatic, but in reality it's only typical. When you strip down all the misperceptions, deceit, and underhanded dealings that are part of our daily lives, it boils down to just a bunch of people living and dying, and there's nothing flashy about it at all.