Emily Dickinson's Extended Metaphor Of Hope

Dickinson’s extended metaphor comparing hope to a bird represents many of her personal experiences and is used to show the significance of the optimism that exists within every human soul. Dickinson lived a life that was full of both faith and despair. Early on, she spent her time at the Amherst Academy where she developed her love for nature and writing. After her time at the Academy, she entered into a seminary for a year to continue her education. Growing up in a very Puritan and religious family, this seemed like an appropriate decision. She soon realized after a year that she was unable to confess her faith in Christ and she left promptly. Later on, she began to write seriously after experiencing a peak in her religious journey. Dickinson’s …show more content…
She begins by stating that “’Hope’ is the thing with feathers-”(). The first thing that stood out to me while reading this was the quotations around “hope”. I believe that Dickinson did this to apply emphasis to the word and also to make it seem as though the word is being defined by the metaphor. Her intention was for the reading to later associate this word with the “thing with feathers”, which is the bird. After this, Dickinson moves on to describe how the bird perches in the soul and sings the tune without any words. This lack of words is significant because it shows how the song is pure and can be interpreted uniquely by the listener. At the end of the stanza, Dickinson concludes by saying that the bird never stops singing “ – at all – “. The use of punctuation is very important here. In contrast to the rest of the lines ending in a dash, this line includes two dashed marks around “at all”. This difference is used to emphasis that similar to the song of the bird, the hope which lives inside of us is eternal and cannot be blocked or broken. The overall message of this stanza is that hope lives within us and can never be let go