Compare and Contrast Essay: Hope (Emily Dicknson), Hold Fast Dreams (Langston Hughes), Hope (ice johnson ) Essay

A lot of people in the world view hope in different ways. Some think it is very important and some think it isn’t even realistic. I find hope is a way of thinking and an important value in life. I can also see hope as a way of life in Israel’s national anthem “Hatikva”, which includes the words “Od lo avda tikvatenu; hatikva bat shnot alpayim” (Translation: Our hope has not yet been lost; the hope is two thousand years old). Despite its importance, hope can’t be the only idea a person lives by because you have to act as well as hope. Three poets, Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes and ice johnson, express their ideas of hope in their work (“Hope,” “Hold Fast Dreams” and “Hope” respectively). We can see similarities and differences between these poems which I will try to delve into.

In all the poems there is the same, general theme of hope, but each poet describes it in a different way and feels differently about it. Emily Dickinson uses a bird as a metaphor for hope. She says that hope’s perch is our soul and that even if it sings its tune wordlessly, it will never stop singing. She also says that it is sweetest in the gale and that storms cannot stop it. Furthermore, she mentions that it is everywhere but that it never demands anything in return, even in the hardest times. Langston Hughes actually talks about keeping your dreams, which in my opinion is close to hope, because our hope is based on our dreams. He says that you should hold onto your dreams, because if you do not, “life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly”   or it is “a barren field, frozen with snow” . Ice johnson mentions in his poem that hope is “not the best way but at least a way” , meaning that hope also can have disadvantages, such as making people to optimistic to see the realistic side of life, but it’s still a way to live and escape the massacre and disaster. He also mentions that hope is all he’s got.



As well as there being different ideas of hope in the poems, the language in the...