"Faith" is a fine invention

Dickinson’s poem qualifies as a lyric since it’s short and expresses some of the personal beliefs of the author. As with Dickinson’s other poems, she uses her speaker to subvert norms about religion and gender dynamics. The poem is also a parable since it tries to teach the reader a lesson about when to rely on faith and when to consult something more concrete. Since the lesson isn’t 100% clear, the poem has elements of a riddle, as the reader must figure out what the speaker means by faith, gentlemen, and microscopes, and they have to define “an Emergency!” (Line 4).

The speaker of Dickinson’s poem has quite a bit of personality. They don’t have an avowed gender, but their robust character manifests in the poem’s syntax and grammar or the arrangement of words and punctuation. Right away, the speaker expresses their skepticism of faith by putting the words in quotes. This type of punctuation is informally known as “scare quotes”; it’s as if the speaker is afraid to say faith, so they put it in quotes, so someone else says faith in Line 1 when the speaker announces, “‘Faith’ is a fine invention.