I’m Wife I’ve Finished That

I’m Wife I’ve Finished That - meaning Summary

Marriage as Settled Identity

The poem presents a speaker who declares marriage as a completed identity shift, trading a prior ‘‘other state’’ for the authority and safety of being a wife. Dickinson contrasts the constrained, eclipsing change from girlhood to wifedom with a matter-of-fact acceptance: the new life brings comfort where previous freedom felt like pain. The closing imperative, an abrupt refusal to continue comparing, emphasizes finality and the speaker’s settled self-definition.