Emily Dickinson's Hope Is The Thing With Feathers

In his book titled Emily Dickinson, Paul J. Ferlazzo claims that Dickinson’s “sense of worry about salvation after death takes many forms in every period of her life.” In order to expand on his claim, Ferlazzo offers the following Dickinson’s stanza as an example to support his point of view.

The first element that brings out the theme of this poem is the metaphor. Emily Dickinson uses quotation marks for the word “hope” to mention its atypical use. In Stanza 1: She introduces the metaphor in lines 1-2 then extends it throughout the entire poem. (“Hope’ is the thing with feathers… perches in the soul). Here is a description of hope as a "thing", a powerful feeling that hangs out “in the soul” (line 3-4), where it sings "without the words." a universal song everybody can listen to and understand, and “never stop” but is always there to inspire us. This bird sings songs that never end, consequently, hope song for us will never ends either. Hope, normally defined as a feeling/desire is described here as a bird and whatever will be said of the bird in the entire poem refers to hope. In Stanza 2 line 5: according to Dickinson, hope is "sweetest" during a storm. We mostly need hope, when things are going badly. In

Throughout all of the texts, the main character shines a factor of perseverance in their story in order to have hope and overcome their odds. The protagonists in each text are determined to overcome their obstacles and receive a favorable ending. In Emily Dickinson’s poem, she uses a metaphor to portray hope as a bird that is constantly helping other people. Even though hope is not a tangible thing, the bird perseveres through every situation and “never stops at all,” when aiding people in tough times. Likewise, in the article by Mark Memmot, Alice Herz- Sommer pushes through Nazi imprisonment in hopes of seeing her family again. The author writes, “Despite all that has befallen her, Alice insists that she has never, ever hated the Nazis,

Emily Dickinson is truly a powerful and encouraging poet that speaks to the reader through her writing. When I first read the title of this poem, “ ‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers,” it really grasped my attention and lured me to read more about it, hence its unusual name. The way Dickinson describes such simple things and expands the reader’s perception, exposes the mind to another level of profundity. For instance, the lines “And sings the tune without the words -

In Emily Dickinson’s poem #340, or also known as “I felt a funeral in my brain,” there is a theme of change that can be derived from the imagery presented by the poet. The poem is voiced from the perspective of the deceased who describes their funeral as heard through the casket. The choice to utilize a funeral as a backdrop to this poem is intriguing given that there could be many other ways to depict a personal change. Even though other poetic styles like Romanticism and transcendentalism exists in this era, Dickinson chooses to this ominous subject medium. Dickinson’s choice of setting for this poem could be indicative of her surroundings, namely the death-riddled Civil War era. Whether this poem represents a positive change or a negative change, is left up to the interpretation of the reader. One certainty is that Dickinson takes the reader into a story of transformation. Upon further examination, I would like to explore why I perceive this poem to be a metamorphosis for a positive change that emerges from a cocoon of the macabre.

She illustrates hope as a bird, and how it sings melodious hymns within you, and never gives up on you. This really stood out to me, mainly because of how metaphorical this was. The very first line starts with a metaphor, saying, “Hope is a thing with feathers…” This immediately intrigued me to read more, and found yet another, stating, “And sweetest in the Gale is heard;”, meaning that you could hear hope, singing it’s joyous praises, even through the strongest of your troubles. One last example of this extraordinary metaphorical language, comes in the last two lines. These two lines hit me vigorously, as it states, “Yet, never, in Extremity, It asked a crumb of

In Emily Dickenson’s poem “Hope is the thing with Feathers,” she is creating a metaphor of hope through a bird. Dickenson spend most of her life isolated using her poetry to show her inner emotions. The hope that is within the author is like a bird that continues to fly inside her. The poems tone is encouraging and optimistic. The author is trying to explain to the reader that hope is everywhere and offers encouragement through struggles. Throughout the poem the author uses metaphor, symbolism, and personification to illustrate hope

In the poem hope , Dickinson is describing what a simple single word means and symbolizes to her . “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, and sings the tune-- without the words, and never stops at all” . With this description she has given , Dickinson is saying that hope in her point of view is like a bird , thats her symbol of hope. “And sore be the storm that could abash the little bird that kept so many warm”. To me this line sounds like the storm is a person or thing

Dickinson often relates herself to a bird, showing that she can rise above society and is free within the world of her poetry. She says “Himself has but to will/And easy as a Star/Abolish his Captivity” (“Poem 613”, 9-11). If she is comparing herself to a bird, it is clear that while, on the surface, the bird is escaping the pound he was imprisoned in for treason, she is following his example and flying out of her prison of prose. The poem again is brought back to the idea of ridiculing society’s views of Dickinson with this line “And laugh—No more have I” (“Poem 613”, 12). Here Dickinson says that the bird laughs at its prison as it escapes, and reconjures the comparison between a bird and Dickinson. She also laughs at her prison, and escapes by her will to make something better of herself than what society pressures her to

where it sings wordlessly and without any sudden pause. The song that hope sings sounds sweet “the gale” and it would require something terrifying to “abash the little bird, that's kept so many warm.” The speaker says that no matter how extreme the conditions such as “ in the chillest land, and on the strangest sea.” He never asked for a single crumb from her. when reading this poem I found it extremely entertaining with the fact of trying to figure out what ‘Hope” was representing, as I read the poem I found that “hope” as she said was a “thing with feathers” which made me think of a bird and throughout the poem I figured that the bird had to be the hope that she holds in her

There are other symbols within the poem as well, the “Gale and Storm” symbolize the challenges we face. These challenges may weaken the bird momentarily but hope prevails and continues on and on. In the last stanza, the use of symbolism continues with, “in the chilliest land, And on the strangest sea”. These are used to symbolize life’s worst conditions and yet hope is still there and is everlasting. The final symbol used is within the line “Yet, never, in Extremity, It asked a crumb of me.” Dickinson refers to the crumb because she is suggesting that hope has never asked for anything in return, not even the smallest

I think the meaning of the poem is that hope is something that is always around but it is something we usually don’t notice. Like a bird singing on a branch. It also says that even through a bad storm the bird will still keep singing. Which means that not matter how bad things get hope will still be there. Lastly it says that it has been in the chillest land and on the strangest sea and yet never asked a crumb of me. Which means that through everything hope does not require anything and is strong enough to get us through our

Although these poems have many differences and many similarities, they both make you look at life in a different way. In “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers--” hope is portrayed as a bird. It sings out to people when they need it the most, particularly when the storm if rough. The storm represents life, showing that hope is most evident when life gets hard as we see when Dickinson writes, “And sweetest--in the Gale--is heard--/And sore must be the storm--” (5-6).

Two people that used hope in strange ways are Emily Dickinson and Maya Angelou, but used hope for different situations, . Dickinson uses a bird to express on how he feels about hope. Dickinson has the creativity to use a bird to describe hope. His whole poem is how hope is like a bird. In lines 1-2 Dickinson starts it

Emily Dickinson' s poem number 314, written in 1862, characterizes hope and its behavior in the form of a bird which is obvious from the first line of the poem " Hope is the thing with feathers"(line 1). Dickinson, by using metaphor of a small bird, shows her idea that hope stays alive no matter what troubles can appear on the way of one's life. She characterizes this metaphysical feeling as eternal, endless and powerful.