"Hope" is the thing with feathers

The word hope in its own right holds no certain certitude. Everyone has their own definition of the word and what it means to them, in fact, if you ask any two people you probably won't get the same answer from both of them. This masterpiece by Emily Dickinson shows why the word hope has so many meanings and so many explanation. She shows us that hope uses more than just one sense, she uses sight and hearing which shows us that hope is all around us. She uses a lot of unclear language in a clear attempt to get the reader to make the reader make an interpretation of the poem with a base point (being hope).

She uses ambiguity in this poem to make her own meaning of it but also to allow us as readers to make our own conclusions. Her first line ""Hope" is the thing  with feathers" is the first of many lines to use ambiguity basically meaning one point, that hope can fly and take you anywhere you want, other than that as the reader we have to make our own conclusions. I feel like she uses ambiguity on purpose to basically tell us what she feels like hope means to her but only she can understand. This leaves the reader having to make their own conclusions about what hope means to them. I feel like the subject of hope is such an open-ended subject where in explaining it there is always ambiguity somewhere in your explanation so in this poem she makes us think creatively by making us use our senses to make us understand what she is saying. She says she has "heard it in the chillest land and on the strangest sea" which to me means that no matter what situation she was in she could always hear hope somewhere. In this last line she says "yet never in extremity, it (hope) asked a crumb of me" to me this means that she asked hope for everything yet it never asked for anything back, one might say "well, hope is not a person" well thats the thing, hope is a spirit that needn't anything in return but will be there when you need it most in the extremest of conditions and in the best of times.

In conclusion, ambiguity in this poem is not being unsure, it is being you. It is taking Dickinson's words and molding them into your own meaning, as you read you will see that almost every word she uses can be molded into a new meaning by everyone who reads it. Dickinson had her own meaning of it when she wrote it and never intended it to be understood the same way by any reader as is the deal with most poems unless they are just a story poem (a story written in stanzas using poetic language). All poems are open to interpretation and this poem is a perfect example of that point.