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    Success Is Counted Sweetest

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    Sadam Hussain
    The poem "Success is counted sweetest" by Emily Dickinson argues that the desire for success is strongest in those who have little success. It suggests that the less likely success seems, the more intensely one longs for it. The poem uses metaphors of a dying soldier and honey bees to illustrate this paradox - that those who lack success value it the most. It concludes that the meaning of success diminishes the more it becomes an everyday reality rather than a distant dream.

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    Success Is Counted Sweetest

    Uploaded by

    Sadam Hussain
    172 views2 pages
    The poem "Success is counted sweetest" by Emily Dickinson argues that the desire for success is strongest in those who have little success. It suggests that the less likely success seems, the more intensely one longs for it. The poem uses metaphors of a dying soldier and honey bees to illustrate this paradox - that those who lack success value it the most. It concludes that the meaning of success diminishes the more it becomes an everyday reality rather than a distant dream.

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    The poem "Success is counted sweetest" by Emily Dickinson argues that the desire for success is strongest in those who have little success. It suggests that the less likely success seems, the more intensely one longs for it. The poem uses metaphors of a dying soldier and honey bees to illustrate this paradox - that those who lack success value it the most. It concludes that the meaning of success diminishes the more it becomes an everyday reality rather than a distant dream.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    172 views2 pages

    Success Is Counted Sweetest

    Uploaded by

    Sadam Hussain
    The poem "Success is counted sweetest" by Emily Dickinson argues that the desire for success is strongest in those who have little success. It suggests that the less likely success seems, the more intensely one longs for it. The poem uses metaphors of a dying soldier and honey bees to illustrate this paradox - that those who lack success value it the most. It concludes that the meaning of success diminishes the more it becomes an everyday reality rather than a distant dream.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
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    “Success is counted sweetest”

    Themes

    Success, Lack, and Desire


    Emily Dickinson’s “Success is counted sweetest” argues that “success” is valued most
    by those who have it least. In this sense, success is a kind of a paradox: the more
    successful you are, the less you appreciate that success, and vice versa. The desire for
    success is thus strongest in those who need it most—like the dying soldier who can
    hear the celebrations of his enemies. Desire, then, is defined by a sense of lack—of not
    having something.

    It follows that the less likely success is to come to someone, the more intensely they will
    desire it. The use of “sweetest” and "nectar" in the first stanza further draw a link
    between success and desire, as though “success” is something deliciously luxurious to
    those who don't have it. Indeed, the metaphor in the second half of the first stanza
    suggests that this paradoxical relationship between success and valuing success is
    engrained in nature itself. A honey bee, for example, desires “nectar” more and more
    the hungrier it gets. Likewise, those whose longing for success is met only with failure
    feel increasingly hungry for success (according to this poem anyway).

    The poem develops this idea further with a metaphor about military conflict. In this
    scenario, a soldier lies “dying” on the ground, hearing the “distant” sounds of “triumph”
    made by the victorious army (the “purple Host”). It is this dying soldier, not the victors
    themselves, who best understands what success actually means. He senses the vast
    distance between his “failure”—the fact that his side has lost the battle and he is now
    dying—and the goal of the battle in the first place: victory. In other words, the position
    he finds himself in is as far away as it possibly could be from the position he desired to
    be in.
    The poem's central idea doesn’t seem limited to the specific examples given. Its
    message could equally apply to the “agony” of unrequited love or a sportsperson failing
    to win the tournament they’ve always dreamed of winning. People who don't have
    something want it all the more strongly. Yet the more that thing becomes a part of daily
    reality—be it success in terms of battle, love, career, or anything else—the less it
    actually means.

    The road not taken


    Thems
    Choices and Uncertainty

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