Emily Dickinson starts off her poem by saying “Fame is a Fickle Food.” Fickle means ‘always changing,’ So Ms. Dickinson is saying that fame is a food that is always changing. Fame has its ups and downs, constantly changing. Fame could be amazing one day, but the wonderful gifts of that moment will never last. The line in the first stanza:

“Whose table once a

Guest but not

The second time is set.”

Confused me a little, but then I realized that Fame has an impact on so many people (the table set), and evanescent (only momentary), and you never know what will happen. The second stanza almost portrays the downfalls [the bits of crumbs], what we have of fame (little tiny fractured pieces). But that is not what the second stanza portrays. Instead, the second stanza describes how we associate people with fame, a horrible pair. How people and fame contact, and the result is described (only crumbs). The next line says:

“And with ironic caw

Flap past it to the Farmer's Corn-”

The iconic crowing is because the crows aren’t eating the crumbs of fame, even though crows are known to scavenge for people food. The scavenging crows go for the more nourishing food, corn, instead of the unfilling, fame. What I am really trying to say is “Shifting plate” in this poem is a symbol of fame’s inconsistency. How is one able to eat food on a plate, that is constantly moving and changing (being fickle)? Sure, there might be times when you can eat a bite, but the food will never be enough, never fill your heart’s content, only snags of it. The corn, on the other hand, is nourishing, filling you up, instead of leaving you empty. The crows, known to be all horrible and evil, decide not to chance their life and stick to the wonderful corn. The last line:

“Men eat of it and die”

Was not as confusing as the other one, once I understood it’s meaning. Dying comes naturally, no matter who you are (Thanks, Yvie, for bringing that up). In this case, though, this kind of dying isn’t literal. The dying is of the old self. The old self would rather stick to being full, while the new self would rather chase around fame and go a little hungry. Now that I have explained, time to get onto with the prompt. Emily Dickinson used figurative language in [almost] all her lines of this poem. Because I have finished explaining and reviewing them, I must tell on how the figurative language affects the mood, tone, and overall meaning of the poem.

All the figurative language are metaphors. Ms. Dickinson never uses the words ‘like’ or ‘as’ to compare the people, animals, food, and fame to another meaning. Through it all, the tone stays almost the same. The tone isn’t really menacing, or sad. The tone is serious, but not to the point where every word is strict. As we follow along the lines of the poem, we almost see a little turn in the second stanza. Though there still is seriousness, there is a little bit of stubbornness about how a human behaves, and the outcomes of it. This creates a mood that is equally serious, and has a tad bit of devastation, when the poet writes “Men eat of it and die.” Because of this, the overall meaning of the poem is about fame and its consequences. One shall not be satisfied with the meager meat fame brings. To one day, Fame brings glory, to another fame brings disaster. One shall be satisfied without Fame, without fame there is a meal large enough in itself. Could it possibly be about greed? No, but fame is a large form of greed. The real overall message (or theme) of this poem is “The nature of Fame will take away from what is really important, and what is not. You will lose yourself and become one extremely different person. But, once you have managed to bite onto fame, one will not let go, thinking they will then be satisfied, but never will.

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