Gul Mohar English Class 8 Poem - Hope is the Thing with Feathers

Gul Mohar Edition 9 Orient Blackswan

Gul Mohar English Poem - Hope is the Thing with Feathers

Writer of the poem - Emily Dickinson

Summary

“Hope is the thing with feathers” is a kind of hymn of praise, written by Emily Dickinson to honor the human capacity for hope. The extended metaphor in the poem portrays hope as a bird that lives within the human soul. As a bird can not fly without wings so man can not live without the ray of hope in his life. Her choice of words shows her positive approach towards optimism but this feel of hope is so beautiful and powerful that even it resembles a lovely song which is not dependent on the words to be completed.

Just like a song causes the sense of comfort, eases out our discomfort, and makes the mood light and joyful; similarly the feeling of hope provides comfort and gives strength to provide joy in the heart of people who believes strongly on hope. The author further says that this positive element of hope is not temporary but is permanent in nature. It is continuous and everlasting.

Even in the depths of despair,  people can still have hope - and this hope will sustain them. Indeed, the bird sings “sweetest” in the storm. In other words, hope shows its importance in times of adversity and seems to guide people through that adversity. This point could apply to humanity’s challenges in a general sense, or it could relate to more personal experiences like individual grief and loss. In either case, hope gives people the strength to carry on, and it’s at its most useful when circumstances are at their worst (the hardest, unbearable, and challenging circumstances that come at least once in every person's life). It is this sweet song - this sweet hope - that has been the source of warmth for so many people during the coldest of blizzards. The poetess elucidates the expansive power hope wields over us. It gets merrier and sweeter as the storm gets mightier and relentless. The poetess deems that no storm can sway hope and its adamant attitude.

Dickinson concludes her poem by stressing that hope retains its clarity and tensile strength in harshest of conditions, yet it never demands in return for its valiant services. Hope is inherently powerful and certainly needs no polishing, as it steers the ship from one storm to another with efficacy.

Theme: Hope is the feeling of expectation and a strong desire for a certain things to happen. It is a belief that a positive thing will happen out of the harsh circumstances and situation in someone's life. Hope provides positive attitudes of life to rise above all extremities.