Dickinson discussion - Essay Example

Hope is the Thing with Feathers The poem “Hope is the Thing with Feathers” by Emily Dickinson describes a concept of hope through the metaphor of bird, in order to show the main attributes of hope and what it is. The author uses a concrete image of bird describing an abstract concept of hope in the first lines of the poem. She claims that hope is the thing with feathers and this image reminds a reader about something gentle and light as human soul. In fact, by the image of bird the author claims that hope lives in human soul and accompanies us wherever we are.

This bird-hope is not afraid of any extreme circumstances and stays with us keeping warm inside of our soul even when it seems that everything is about to fail. Dickinson uses different methods of whiting in order to strengthen the image of the concept of hope depicted in bird. The author uses the comparison of hope with the essence of bird because they are alike by their gentleness and a kind of intangibility. We start to imagine hope as something that always lives inside our souls and as a bird that silently sings her song we can hear the feeling of hope when we have nothing left.

Though we can’t catch the feeling because it is a thing with feathers and we can only look at it without trying to catch it or do something with it. Thus in the poem the concept of hope is embodied in bird as a symbol of something that always exists in us and appears when we really need it.