There's a Method to my Madness: Paradox of "Much Madness is divinest Sense"

"Much Sense — the starkest Madness — "

Dickinson's poem is chalk full of paradoxes; even the title is a paradox. How can madness be sensible? Actually she uses this paradox to explain society and its sometimes crazy ideas. Often when you look back in history at people's choices or actions you wonder how they possibly could have thought that was a good idea. I mean who would have believed that the world was flat? However, Dickinson's poem explains how even the most insane ideas can be considered acceptable and sensible because the majority believes it to be true. Also she makes the parallel explanation of how even if one person actually has the right or sensible idea, it will most likely be shut down because it is against what the majority believes. She says if you assent or go with the crowd then you will be thought of as sane or normal. On the other hand if you go against this belief you are considered insane and therefore dangerous. When a person threatens to disprove everything you thought to be true, people tend to take this with some hostility. So even when someone discovered the world was really round and that it revolves around the sun, people refused to believe it and called him crazy. Dickinson's poem conveys this absurd but true statement about life through the use of the paradox between madness and sense.