Emily Dickinson's Poem Hope Is The Thing With Feathers

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Hope. Does everyone have hope? According to Emily Dickinson's poem, Hope is the Thing with Feathers. In the first stanza,when she says “Hope is the thing with feathers/ That perches in the soul” (1-2), Dickinson is saying that hope is like the bird singing a tune, which doesn’t speak in a conventional sense. One very important thing from Dickinson's point of view is that hope "springs eternal,” that is, hope is a permanent fixture of our being that allows us to overcome many of life’s obstacles. “And sweetest in the gale is heard;/And sore must be the storm.” this quote from the second stanza assists in the emphasis of the power of hope: the more the wind howls and the storm rages, the more beautiful the bird's song. Dickinson has a hard time imagining a storm so strong that it could overpower the birds mighty melody, so one would argue that hope, which has kept so many people from despair, can overcome anything. In the third stanza it says that the little bird, regardless of having to endure "the chillest land" and "strangest sea," …show more content…
In the first stanza Dickinson uses a slant rhyme in lines two and four of stanza one with “soul” and “all.” In the second stanza She continues an every other line rhyme scheme similar to the first stanza. The last stanza changes the scheme a bit. It rhymes the last three lines of the poem. Using a different rhyme scheme adds an interesting aspect to this poem. Another poetic device used in this poem is metaphor. In the first line she says “Hope is thing thing with feathers,” (1) She is calling hope a bird. “Hope perches in the soul,” (2) meaning, hope stays in the soul. “And sings the tune without to words, and never stops at all.” Songbirds are famous for their songs. Although there are no words to be understood, people are strongly affected by bird songs. The sound of birds singing renews many people’s sense of possibility and
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