Emily Dickinson's, poem, "The Wife" reveals the poet's concerns for domestic femininity in middle-class families through expressing the gender roles of females and using the term "wife" frequently. ... As we can see in this stanza, Dickinson quotation marks the femininely inflected words "wife", "woman". ... She sees the progress of the change from a willful girl to a married wife, who is in "the soft eclipse". ... " the ending "I'm Wife! ... I'm "Wife!" ...

• Word Count: 1111
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School