Hope (Emily Brontë poem) Essay Questions

How does the speaker depict her relationship to Hope in the poem?

The speaker characterizes her relationship to Hope as unstable and unreliable. In the text, Hope is constantly turning away from her, rejecting her attention and attempts at communication. While the speaker finds momentary solace in Hope's singing, she quickly finds that their relationship is never on solid ground. At the end of the poem, when the speaker is in dire straits, Hope vanishes. The speaker's frustration is rooted in the fact that she values Hope but can never seem to be in touch with it when she is most in need.

How does Brontë use personification?

Brontë uses personification in the poem to make her more abstract ideas concrete. In the first line, she personifies hope as a "timid friend." From there, she is able to portray the speaker's relationship with hope as an unbalanced interpersonal one. This gives Brontë the leeway to write about the speaker's struggles with misfortune and despair in a more tangible manner, instead of trying to describe an immaterial emotion. By making hope into a character, she is better able to categorize the role it plays in the speaker's life, giving the reader a clearer connection to the ideas she is trying to convey.