The Devil Had He Fidelity - Analysis

A paradox with a clear verdict

Emily Dickinson’s central claim is bluntly conditional: evil would be lovable if it were loyal. The poem opens with a startling hypothetical—The Devil – had he fidelity—and treats it as more than a joke. Dickinson argues that the Devil’s problem is not power or charm but an incapacity for repair. If fidelity were possible for him, he Would be the best friend; because it is not, friendship itself becomes impossible. The poem reads like a moral proof in miniature, where one missing ingredient collapses the whole case for redemption.

Why the Devil almost qualifies

Dickinson doesn’t deny the Devil’s gifts. She even sounds impressed: Because he has ability –. That word is deliberately vague, letting ability cover intelligence, persuasive force, daring—everything that can make a person magnetically useful or thrilling. In this light, the Devil is not a cartoon villain; he’s the person with the competence to be indispensable. The provocation is that these capacities could serve friendship as easily as harm—if the core commitment existed.

The deal-breaker: the inability to mend

The poem’s hinge is a small, hard sentence: But Devils cannot mend –. Dickinson shifts from imagining a better Devil to stating a rule about what devils are. Mending suggests more than saying sorry; it implies the practical, patient work of restoring trust after damage. A friend isn’t defined by never hurting you, but by the willingness to repair what’s been broken. The Devil’s ability might include dazzling skills, but the poem insists that without mending, ability becomes dangerous competence—power without accountability.

Perfidy as a twisted “virtue”

Then Dickinson sharpens the accusation by calling betrayal a moral habit: Perfidy is the virtue. The line is intentionally offensive; virtue is the word we reserve for what makes someone reliably good. By attaching it to perfidy, Dickinson suggests that the Devil’s treachery isn’t occasional—it’s his defining excellence, the thing he does best. This creates the poem’s central tension: the speaker can imagine the Devil as a best friend, yet she also treats betrayal as his most stable trait. The contradiction is the point. Dickinson is measuring how close evil can come to goodness—close enough to pass, if only it could keep faith.

The impossible resignation

The poem briefly dangles a fantasy of reform: That would but he resign. The phrasing is stiff and legalistic, as if fidelity were a job the Devil could quit. But the poem’s earlier declaration—Devils cannot mend –—undercuts the fantasy. He cannot simply resign perfidy because perfidy is what he is. Dickinson’s moral imagination is generous enough to state the terms of redemption clearly, yet unsentimental enough to deny that the Devil can meet them.

A final flip: divinity as a matter of trust

The ending lands with a cool, almost administrative certainty: without question the Devil Were thoroughly divine—if fidelity were possible. That last phrase, thoroughly divine, is deliberately excessive: not partly improved, not occasionally good, but fully transformed. Dickinson’s finale implies a daring hierarchy: what makes something “divine” is not raw power but trustworthy allegiance. The poem’s tone is wry and incisive, but it isn’t merely clever; it suggests that the line between devil and god is drawn at fidelity. In other words, the Devil’s damnation is not his strength—it’s his unkeepable promise.