“Hope” is the Thing with Feathers

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.

By Emily Dickinson

Hope is common word that we use in our daily conversations, but it is quite hard

to be explained the true meaning. The Oxford Dictionary defines ‘hope’ as a belief

that something you want will happen. ‘Hope’ is also defined as a verb, to want

something to happen and think that it is possible. Emily Dickinson also tried to

defined the true meaning of ‘hope’ in her famous poem titled ‘Hope’ is the Thing

with Feathers.
 Emily Dickinson was a female poet from America. She was born in Amherst,

Massachusetts, USA, on December 10 1830. She has written many poems in her

life. Dickinson had no special themes in writing her poems, because of the variety

of her poems, her work does not fit into one genre. Emily Dickinson lived much of

her life inside, her poetry focuses on her inner struggles. Throughout her poems,

she questions God and writes of her own struggles with faith, especially in her

sufferings. In addition, her poems also focus on her confusion with self-identity.

Altough she lives alone, she becomes someone through her writing. By the 1860s,

Emily Dickinson lived in almost complete isolation from the outside world but still

had some relationships through letters. But only after her death that her poems

were discovered and published. One of her famous poems is ‘Hope’ is the Thing

with Feathers. As I mentioned above, this poem defines hope from the poet’s

perspective.

From the title of the poem we know that the word hope is defined as a concrete

thing. It is said as a thing with feathers. If we read the title, the thing with

feathers will come into our mind. It means that hope is something like fowls or

birds. The poet used this metaphor to say that hope is something alive.

“Hope” is the Thing with Feathers

That perches in the soul

The first line of the poem is the same as the title of the poem. It uses feathers

to make an imagination of hope, a hope with feathers means that it can fly

anywhere and offer you to fly away to a new beginning. And a new beginning starts

from a new hope. Feathers can also representate that hope is something soft and

humble. So from the first line, we will come to the thought that hope is something

like a bird. It has feathers to fly.

heart, touches our soul. The word perches emphasize the poet’s intention that

hope is considered as a metaphor of living creature, particularly a bird. Because

only a living thing such as a bird that can perch in a place. The word soul can be

considered as a home for a hope, it is similar with the tree as a home for a bird.

So the bird perches in its home which is a tree, and a hope perches in its home

which is the soul.

And sings the tune without the words

And never stops - at all

If a bird can sing with the bird’s words, hope can’t sing with the words. We can

phisycally hear the sounds from the singing of a bird. But hope, we can’t phisycally

hear it, but we can hear the sound of the hope inside our soul. It encourages us to

believe that something that we want will be achieved someday. Hope stays there,

inside our soul, keeps singing with it’s own words that can only be understood

differently by each person. The singing of a bird usually beautiful and comforting

to create a good mood. This metaphor is used to say that hope is also beautiful

and comforting our soul in reaching something, keeping us in a positive and good

moods.

The bird will stop singing when it’s tired or flying in the air. But from this

poetry, the poet tells us that hope will never stop singing at all as long as we still

have it inside our soul. It always presents to us. But the bird as a hope, never stop

singing of hope. It always sings the tune of hope to comfort our soul.

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard

And sore must be the storm

That kept so many warm -

The next stanza explains more about the little bird. We still can hear the

sweet tune from the singing bird even in the gale. We know that the storm is

painful, but a little bird keeps singing with its sweet and comforting tunes.

Altough the storm could abash the bird, it doesn’t move or fly away from us. It

stays there and give us warm. This stanza represents hope as something that

will always be there, in our soul. Hope gives us strength even in the difficult and

harsh situation. The warm that is offered by hopes promised us that something

better will come after those bad situations. But sometimes, people can lose

hopes when the situations are too difficult. If people lose hopes, they will never

feel warm anymore. Because a hope bring warmth to keep us belive that good

things come to those who wait.

From this poetry we know that the writer has a very positive thinking

towards the little bird which is a metaphor of a hope. The poet emphasize it in

the third stanza of the poetry.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.

The third stanza begins with the statements from the poet saying that

she had heard the singing of the bird in the chillest land and the strangest sea.

This means that the poet had gone through the hardest situation that she never

experienced before. The chillest land represents a cold situations, and a cold

situations is never be easy, it must be a difficult situation. The strangest sea

and we don’t have any idea how to face it.

But the third and fourth line says that even in those situations, the bird

keeps singing without asking anything, even a crumb. It is a representation of

hope that keeps perching there in the soul, serving us selflessly, and making us

believe that good things will happen. And hopes don’t ask anything from us for

having them. Hope is a power for us to be strong enough through our troubles.

The tone of the poet are described from the choosing of the words. The

poet choosed the soft and humble words to make the readers calm and believe

that hope is someting soft and humble too. It seems that the poet is trying to

help someone struggling with a problem and trying to make them feel better.

The words are relaxing and comforting. So, I think the purpose of the poet

writing this poetry is to help those who struggling with a problem and have a

negative thinking towards life. The poet wants to tell them that everything will

be fine, nothing’s wrong in this life.

From the poetry above, my conclusion is that every human needs hope to

keep stronger. The poet tells us that hope is what makes you stand up when you

are feeling down, hope is something that you need to continue your life. We will

never get through the difficult and harsh situations if we don’t have a hope

inside our soul. And a hope doesn’t need any payment from us, it just needs a

place in our soul to make us believe that good things come after bad things.