Hope is the thing with feathers by Emily Dickinson

Hope is the thing with feathers by Emily Dickinson

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.
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Title: Hope is the thing with feathers
Paraphrase: A speaker talks about what generally a hope is. According to her, hope is something that never dissapear even in the darkest days.
Connotation: She uses many simile and metaphor to campare "Hope" with objects. Mostly, Emily compares "Hope" to a "Bird". She poetically describes that Hope is the bird with feathers that can make beautiful sounds.
Attitude: She is very positive and even optimistic about the world. Over all, the mood in the poem is cheerful and bright.
Shift: There is no significant shift.
Title: The Hope that Never Fails
Theme: Hope is something that carries "Forever Hope" even in the darkest days.

“Alone” by Edgar Allan Poe

“Alone” by Edgar Allan Poe

From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were—I have not seen
As others saw—I could not bring
My passions from a common spring—
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow—I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone—
And all I lov’d—I lov’d alone—
Then—in my childhood—in the dawn
Of a most stormy life—was drawn
From ev’ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still—
From the torrent, or the fountain—
From the red cliff of the mountain—
From the sun that ’round me roll’d
In its autumn tint of gold—
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass’d me flying by—
From the thunder, and the storm—
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view—

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Title: "Alone"
Paraphrase: A speaker in this poem tells what he was, saw, and felt in his childhood. Moreover, he tells how he was different from others. He saw different things from other "normal" kids in their childhood. From his childhood, he was isolated and separated because he is just "different". In my opinion, this poem tells about Mr. Poe himself considering his rough childhood and how it influenced his later life.
Connotation: A lot of imagery is shown in this poem. Many senses are used - sight, hearing and feeling. Rhyme, which is the famous characteristics of Poe's poems, is present. Some phrases are repeated in order to make rhythms. Also, structure of this poem, such as, ending the line in next stanza, makes the poem more rhythmic.
Attitude: Through out the poem, loneliness and sorrow from being different dominate the poem's atmosphere. In fact, the title, "Alone", indicates the whole atmosphere in this poem.
Shift: Although there is not a significant shift, in stanza 9, he tells how he was different.
Title: The abnormal one
Theme: The uniqueness of a speaker in his childhood/coming of age

At the Movie: Virginia, 1956

At the Movie: Virginia, 1956
by Ellen Bryant Voigt

This is how it was:
they had their own churches, their own schools,
schoolbuses, football teams, bands and majorettes,
separate restaurants, in all the public places
their own bathrooms, at the doctor’s
their own waiting room, in the Tribune
a column for their news, in the village
a neighborhood called Sugar Hill,
uneven rows of unresponsive houses
that took the maids back in each afternoon—
in our homes used the designated door,
on Trailways sat in the back, and at the movie
paid at a separate entrance, stayed upstairs.
Saturdays, a double feature drew the local kids
as the town bulged, families surfacing
for groceries, medicine and wine,
the black barber, white clerks in the stores—crowds
lined the sidewalks, swirled through the courthouse yard,
around the stone soldier and the flag,
and still I never saw them on the street.
It seemed a chivalric code
laced the milk: you’d try not to look
and they would try to be invisible.
Once, on my way to the creek,
I went without permission to the tenants’
log cabin near the barns, and when Aunt Susie
opened the door, a cave yawned, and beyond her square,
leonine, freckled face, in the hushed interior,
Joe White lumbered up from the table, six unfolding
feet of him, dark as a gun-barrel, his head bent
to clear the chinked rafters, and I caught
the terrifying smell of sweat and grease,
smell of the woodstove, nightjar, straw mattress—
This was rural Piedmont, upper south;
we lived on a farm but not in poverty.
When finally we got our own TV, the evening news
with its hooded figures of the Ku Klux Klan
seemed like another movie—King Solomon’s Mines,
the serial of Atlantis in the sea.
By then I was thirteen,
and no longer went to movies to see movies.
The downstairs forged its attentions forward,
toward the lit horizon, but leaning a little
to one side or the other, arranging the pairs
that would own the county, stores and farms, everything
but easy passage out of there—
and through my wing-tipped glasses the balcony
took on a sullen glamor: whenever the film
sputtered on the reel, when the music died
and the lights came on, I swiveled my face
up to where they whooped and swore,
to the smoky blue haze and that tribe
of black and brown, licorice, coffee,
taffy, red oak, sweet tea—
wanting to look, not knowing how to see,
I thought it was a special privilege
to enter the side door, climb the stairs
and scan the even rows below—trained bears
in a pit, herded by the stringent rule,
while they were free, lounging above us,
their laughter pelting down on us like trash.

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Comments: I liked how Ellen described her life in Virginia. The local images at that time period make the poem more realistic. Moreover, she grew as a girl in Virginia. She portraited the life of "Unfreed men" from young girl's perspective.