Emily Dickinson

Experiment to me

Experiment to me

Dickinson uses scientific language unusually—she's treating people as test subjects. This clinical word choice sets up the poem's analytical approach to human relationships.

EXPERIMENT to me
Is every one I meet.
If it contain a kernel?

kernel

The kernel is the edible seed inside a nut's shell. She's asking whether people have substance beneath their exterior—the word appears in her other poems about testing authenticity.

The figure of a nut
Presents upon a tree,
Equally plausibly;

meat within is requisite

"Requisite" means absolutely necessary, not just nice to have. Dickinson demands substance—she won't settle for attractive shells without nutritional value.

But meat within is requisite,
To squirrels and to me.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Empiricist's Approach to People

Dickinson frames human relationships as scientific experiments, borrowing the language of empiricism that dominated 19th-century thought. This isn't metaphorical—she literally treats each person as a test case for a hypothesis: does this person contain real substance?

The nut analogy works on multiple levels. A nut "Presents upon a tree, / Equally plausibly"—every nut looks roughly the same from the outside, just as people present similar social facades. But plausibility isn't proof. The shell might be empty, wormy, or dried out. Only by cracking it open can you verify the "meat within."

Notice she puts herself in the same category as squirrels—both are creatures who need sustenance, not decoration. This is characteristic Dickinson deflation of human pretension. Squirrels don't care about appearances; they need calories to survive winter. She's equally pragmatic about friendship: attractive exteriors mean nothing if there's no nourishment inside.

Dickinson's Social Isolation

CONTEXT By the time Dickinson wrote this (likely 1860s), she was already withdrawing from Amherst society, eventually rarely leaving her house. This poem helps explain why—she found most people empty shells.

The poem's bluntness is striking. She doesn't say "I hope to find" substance or "I wish people had" depth. She says substance is "requisite"—required, non-negotiable. This is Dickinson drawing a hard line: people without interior depth are useless to her, regardless of how they appear socially.

The scientific framing also protects her. By calling people "experiments," she maintains emotional distance while investigating them. It's a survival strategy for someone hypersensitive to disappointment—treat everyone as data until proven otherwise.