all right so this is my um annotation analysis of hope is a thing with feathers by emily dickinson so i'm gonna go ahead and read through it once and then i'll give you a little breakdown of it hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops it all and sweetus 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 chilliest land and on the strangest sea yet never in extremity it asked a crumb of me so this poem is actually pretty simple in its core there's a lot of layers to it though a lot of pieces to it just like ah a feather that emily dickinson has talked about so let's start with the first stanza the first quatrain so first of all note the fact that hope is in quotes all right so this is going to tell us that this is the star of the poem this is the main topic of the poem so right here when she says hope is the thing with feathers all right what what are we automatically assuming she's comparing hope to a bird okay so we think about all these qualities of a bird as we're going through all right hope is a thing with feathers that perches in the soul okay so it's telling you where hope lives because purchase means it sits so it lives inside you and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all these two lines are telling us that just like a bird sings right and we don't understand what a bird is saying there's no words there's no diction okay but it sings through all kinds of weather if you've ever noticed that right and it never stops so it's comparing singing to the relentless um let's say drive of hope okay so it's saying just like birds don't stop singing hope doesn't stop all right now let's talk a little bit more about this feathers um comparison that she's talking about so the entire um poem is an extended metaphor all right but specifically she's talking about a feather right and if you look at this little picture of the feather all right you can see that feathers are very light okay and they are um what's the word i'm looking for they don't appear very strong because they're made of all these like tiny little fibers okay but really when they're all together all right they form this one great beautiful thing okay and so she's emphasizing how hope finds its strength in unity and finds its strength in uh one okay the idea of it um fusing with you in your soul and never giving up all right so we're sticking with this long metaphor of hope is a thing with feathers all right let's go to the next stanza here all right it says and the sweetest in the gale is heard if you looked up or at one point maybe you just know this but a gale is the storm okay so it's saying it's the sweetest in the storm which makes sense right like when we're in uh think about what is a storm a metaphor for okay storm rough time right in your life so hope is the sweetest in a rough time in your life right like if you're going through something but you have hope that's where you're going to feel feel it the most and it's going to be the sweetest right these two lines go together this says and sore must be the storm that could abash this little bird okay it's basically saying like a storm's gonna have to be really freaking big in order to um uh deter or um kind of silent the bird okay so it's it's saying a big storm big big big big big storm all right would be the only thing to take out hope big storm um as as sad as this is i always think about you know some of our detrimental hurricanes um the biggest one during my like high school time period was hurricane katrina and if you think about all these people through that time they just honestly their hope and their drive was just astounding and so this this line makes me think of that right it would have to be a really big storm all right to take out this little bird we know as hope but even hurricane katrina couldn't couldn't kill the hope of some all right um and then it says the little bird that kept so many warm so it's saying um the bird kept many warm in the storm but what does it really mean by that just kept them hopeful or moving forward okay so kept people hopeful all right so it's a very powerful small bird that kept people warm it was just this tiny little thing called hope that kept people going i really actually i shouldn't have written hopeful right hope keep you hopeful what does say keeps you going all right then we get to the last one now she's talking about herself so we have our shift in the poem right um obviously we've been talking about shifts shift okay because she's talking about ho po pope and then here she's talking about her experience with hope so she said i've heard it in the chilliest land and on the strangest sea these two things tells us she has had some personal troubles okay and that she has experienced this idea that she kept hearing kept feeling hope okay kept hearing the bird kept feeling hope within all of these personal struggles that she went through all right yet never in extremity so it's saying no matter what right no matter what all right so yet never in extremity it asked a crumb of me so no matter what it never asked her for anything in return right sorry when i write on this little tablet it kind of looks silly but the idea that this bird okay has given so much joy and so much um again uh we'll say drive to her all right it's it's saying through the storms it's sen it never stops all right in the chilliest land the strangest sea no matter what it's never asked think of this metaphor okay it's never asked her to feed it okay feed the bird all right it's never asked her to do that right what she's saying is is incredible given that everything the the bird everything hope has done for her it's never actually asked anything of her so um pretty cool poem um again a simple metaphor really with lots of layers to it and the idea um goes along with the transcendentalist philosophies that you know human connection to nature and self-reliance on on one's self is what is most important okay because here she is comparing hope which lives right or sorry perches hope that lives in the soul she's comparing it to a bird that's that's our straight up natural um motif that we see throughout these transcendentalist pieces so i hope it makes sense hope you enjoyed it and continue on with the next piece of your assignment