Ella Wheeler's Poem Essay

Solitude — Ella Wheeler Wilcox Ella Wheeler was a daughter of a poor farmer in Wisconsin, whose knowledge of the world was gained from visiting Madison and Milwaukee from time to time. Aside from the New York Mercury and the New York ledger, she grew up reading all the great literary works such novels of Ouida, Mary J. Holmes, Gautier, Shakespeare, Swinburne, and Byron (Stevenson, 227). As Ella Wheeler Wilcox was traveling to Madison for an inaugural ball she ran across a young widow in the coach of the train. While empathizing with the young woman, her ecstasy for attending the ball was long forgotten as she became dispirited over the whole situation. "The bride of a year, the widow of a week, a lovely girl I had last seen radiant with happiness" (Stevenson, 231-232) she says while watching the woman sobbing in black. It was on that February day in 1883 that Ella Wheeler …show more content…
The first line one could say sets the tone as a happy, inspirational, and insightful poem followed by "...Weep and you weep alone" in which one would change their mind about the tone being happy. As she was inspired to write this poem by the unfortunate widow grieving for her lost, Ella Wheeler Wilcox realized that when you grief you could be surrounded by hundreds of people and yet you are still alone. Being alone could mean many things, you could be alone physically as in you are in a deserted place and are the only living creature in a 100-mile radius. You could mean alone in a mental sense as in you are alone in your mind and people are there for you and you just don't think they are, or you could be alone in an emotional sense where you feel like you are the only one going through a certain situation and no one else can