meaning of success

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The Meaning of Success
徐维一
12009011112
Success is always the one that people want to pursuit during their entire life. But what exactly is success? People have been seeking the answer for ages. Is fortune success? Is admiration success? Is high social status success? After reading Emily Dickinson’s Success Is Counted Sweetest, I’d like to answer this question firmly with NO.
“Success is counted sweetest, by those who ne'er succeed.” The poem meaningfully makes us think about what success and failure are all about. It is human’s nature that we always appreciate things more when we do not have them. People with success often don't appreciate what they are able to accomplish. The process of pursuing success is like climbing a mountain. We would never know how sweet success is until we experience enough failures and frustrations. The journey of reaching to the peak in really tough, and to those who never succeed, there might be endless sorrows, but they have faith and hope, they wound keep longing for success till their dying day. These people know exactly what the feeling of success is much better than those who have already climbed to the top. Take Vincent Van Gogh as an example. This poor man couldn’t experience more miseries than other world famous painters. He was crying for success throughout his life, pity that it never knocked on his door. But every time when people look at his wonderful art works, those treasures could always recall an unbelievable feeling of success. I guess he would tell people days and nights about the definition of success if he still alive today.
On the last part of this poem, Dickinson uses an simple and clear example to support the theme. To those who become proud of their accomplishments by taking over land and waving their flag, what they really get is just a piece of earth. But to those who almost die on the field of battle hear the shouting of
celebration, failure only means the loss of their life. They would say that merely living has already been a success.
I think what Emily Dickinson is trying to say here that only the defeated would know the true meaning of success. The ones who succeed such as the soldiers after an important victory know less of success than the defeated dying men who hears the cheers from a victory. People will never understand the true meaning of victory before they have underwent a failure.
This poem expresses the value of things when they are seen from afar. It seems true that we always take what we possess for granted and never cherish them until we finally lose it. This poem leaves me a deep impression of the true meaning of success.。