- In “Hope is the thing with feathers” Dickinson writes about a bird who sings endlessly through the roughest of storms and gave people hope. How do you think Dickinson’s isolation affected her connection to the bird and its representation of hope?
- In Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for death”, there are numerous examples of symbolism, including death leading the carriage ride, the carriage itself, the horses, the sunset as well as the house. Pick two symbols and explain how Dickinson uses these symbols to allude to different parts of death or dying.
- Do you think the narrator is already dead, or dying and going through her life on the carriage ride in Because I could not stop for death? Explain why.
License
The Open Anthology of Earlier American Literature Copyright © 2016, 2017 by Timothy Robbins is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.