A literary woman of the nineteenth century, Emily Dickinson, wrote, “hope” is the thing with feathers - that perches in the soul - and sings the tune without the words - and never stops - at all” (Emily Dickinson 1). Dickinson’s quote suggests there is an aspect of life, a struggle for spiritual freedom, and her words open the door to every possible meaning and value of the word Hope. One must think, what is hope? What does it take to have hope? In which various aspects, struggles, and experiences of life does hope derive? Is it a term of maybe or a kind or unsure optimism? The modern idea of hope is to wish for; to expect, but without certainty of the fulfillment; to desire very much, but with no real assurance of achieving your desire. The …show more content…
Through every trial, through every woe, in health, in sickness, in poverty, and in want, hope, like a bright fixed star of promise, shines aloft, and bids us not despair. What insight is there in the vision for someone who finds it difficult to hope? Someone, perhaps, for whom the daily grind of suffering seems to enervate hope? In Barbara Sain’s excerpt, One body, One Spirit, One Hope: Theological Resources for Those Who Struggle to Hope, she introduced a story as an example to hope and suffering. “Julie Neraas describes the difficulty of sustaining hope through the daily struggle of chronic illness: "Illness grabbed me by the neck, thrust me into the fire, and swung me around with dizzying force, year after year, dissolving old assumptions, rupturing old identities, exposing easy answers, and complicating my relationship with hope” (Sain 2). With days stretching to years, Neraas's hope struggled to stay alive: sometimes focused on the possibility of a cure, sometimes buoyed by a short stretch of good days, sometimes more or less flattened by the illness. Sometimes an individual may not have the strength or the light to bare inside and carry on; hope cannot rid of suffering, but merely ease the pain. Hope isn’t tangible or easily measured. True hope takes into account the real threats that exist and seeks to navigate the best path around them. In the instance of Neraa, hope enables people to claim power and thus either allow suffering to consume oneself or triumph over it. The ill, the poor, and miserable have no other medicine, but only hope to keep them going and even then hope can be a gift rejected by a person who has fallen into despair and
Christian Wiman is a poet and did not attend church in twenty years. He was diagnosed with an incurable form of blood cancer. He talked about pity of life from tragedy. “That we cannot truly have this knowledge of life, can only feel it is some sort of abstract “wisdom”, until we come very close to death ” (pg 161, line 13-14). Christian talks about when you find out that you have incurable cancer or something, you do not mourn for your death but the death of the life you think of having.
Most times, the lasting result becomes increasingly sweet with realization, metamorphosis, and helpful action. As each individual experiences despair, resulting action varies. Yet no matter how minuscule or substantial the problem at large is, the presence of acting accordingly to cease the problem remains perpetual. With collaboration of ideas and seeking guidance from groups, one comes to find assurance and advice that of which unveil the truth and the knowing it takes to remove any problem all together. An immediate chain like response occurs, almost like a wake up call, sounding loudly and abruptly, even after snooze was set, to clearly dictate that action needs to be taken. When proper action is taken, then miraculous life will
Hope is one of Faulkner's favorite spices for cooking his characters. It is perhaps the most human of all emotions in that it is fragile like the body, but at the same time all powerful like the spirit. Lena Grove and Byron Bunch both have an endless amount of hope for the same thing: love they have never received. Hope brought her from Alabama to Mississippi in search of her runaway Lucas. Likewise, hope will carry Byron wherever Lena goes until he can find her love.
According to the dictionary hope is thinking and wanting something to happen or be true (“Hope”). During difficult times hope can either be everywhere or completely lost. World War Two was a time in which it was almost impossible to find hope. It seemed as if every person had given up hope for a better life and future. But one person who seemed to bring hope in a hopeless place was Raoul Wallenberg. Raoul Wallenberg was a Swedish diplomat and businessman in Hungary who saved the lives of countless Jews ("Raoul Wallenberg”). World War Two was filled with despair and tragedy, however that where people like Raoul Wallenberg who brought hope to Hungarian Jews and people today.
"Hope - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary." Dictionary and Thesaurus - Merriam-Webster Online. Merriam-Webster. Web. 24 July 2011. .
Hope, by definition means to look forward to something with reasonable desire and confidence. Hope also means a person or thing in which expectations are centered. When discussing the word hope, one must consider the core values by which the word works around. You could hope for financial success, world peace, or simply hope for some good out of your day. In 2006, Barack Obama wrote the political biography The Audacity of Hope to outline his core political and spiritual beliefs, as well as his opinions on different aspects of American culture. The Illinois senator divided the book into nine chapters, each concentrating on both his own and the United States’ successes and failures in local and state politics. While revealing great leadership attributes, life experiences, personal qualities and hard facts, largely in anecdotal method, Barack Obama offers realistic, wide and thoughtful responses to today’s current domestic controversies using artistic appeals, such as ethos, pathos and logos. Senator Obama also gives the audience an in-depth analysis of the key policies that need to be changed for both Democrats and Republicans, and delivers an inherent message to offer hope to anyone, regardless of background or experiences. In the prologue, he discusses in great detail virtually every major political issue facing the American electorate today, offering his opinions and possible strategies for reform. “My motivation in entering politics was to cut through decades of polarizing partisanship and develop a moderate, effective approach to our government.” (Barackopedia.org). Obama notes that this same impulse, an impulse of a secure, functional and sustainable administration, prompted him to write The Audacity of Hope.
“Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope! A belief in things not seen. A belief that there are better days ahead.” President Obama’s 2004 keynote speech gives a timeless message of hope that especially resonates with minorities who face an uncertain future. Similarly, in her novel Beloved, Toni Morrison develops the theme that hope in the face of forced dehumanization, through the relationship between darkness and light, gives the oppressed a purpose and the ability to overcome and thrive despite persecution.
“Hope is defined as the action of wishing or desiring that something will occur.” Hope helps people move forward in life to see what’s coming next for them. For example, “I had no right to let myself die. What would he do without me? I was his sole support” (Wiesel, “Night”.) This quote explains the effects of hope in a pitiful situation. Eliezer Wiesel and his father were torn apart, mentally and physically from everything they
And though he experiences both sides of the paradox, it is ultimately the uplifting and inspiring effect of hope that pushes him to fight back against his oppression rather than continue to accept his enslavement. Grappling with hope and using it to move himself forward against overwhelming odds shows that even though it can be used to pacify people and keep them in their place, wishing for a rosy future that can never exist, it can also be the fire that motivates them to finally change their
“There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens,” says the third chapter of the book of Ecclesiastes. We can state that just as there is “a time to give birth, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant. . .,” there is also a time to be healthy and a time to be ill. Certainly, a considerable portion of our human nature consists of being wounded and lacerated by the struggles we face, the imperfections of our interpersonal relationships, and the numerous opponents to our physical and spiritual health and well-being. Fortunately, God has bestowed upon humanity the gifts of faith and medicine for our overall health. The gift of faith fosters health, and motivates us to surrender to God Almighty. In addition, faith constantly reminds us that the Lord not only desires our health and well-being, but also knows how to give us what we need, and can give it to us.
No matter how bad things may seem, there is always hope for things to ameliorate. When people believe that the future will be promising, they can have something to look forward to as opposed to dwelling on the past or the problems of the present. This hope can give a person a positive outlook on life and motivate him or her to look past what is happening in the present. In the poems “Hope is the Thing with Feathers” by Emily Dickinson and “The Darkling Thrush” by Thomas Hardy, they both convey similar messages about hope. Both works display the theme of hope being present at all times no matter how bad things may seem and is a consistent option for anyone in need of help.
Hope is the feeling responsible for preventing people from giving up and quitting. The power of hope gives people a reason to keep fighting for the future they desire. In Kamala Markandaya’s novel, Nectar in a Sieve, which takes place in the 1950s, she tells her readers about the hope of two destitute farmers in rural India: Nathan and Rukmani. They face monsoons, droughts, and other hardships that attempt to destroy their lives and those of their children, but through the troubles, they meet wonderful people that help them survive and flourish. Throughout the novel, Markandaya shows the true importance of hope and how it helped Rukmani’s family never give up.
Therefore, the hardships that an individual can go through can be very devastating to the point where one has no strength to go on and all the emptiness overcomes them. Losing one's sense of self and identity, makes an individual question every aspect of their life. Faith and hope brings salvation and gives them a desire for a certain thing to happen. For instance, Levi emphasizes how “disease renders [ones] powerless” (Line 22). Disease can also imply that one is suffering emotionally as well as mentally resulting as a stripped away part of one's life.
The “Hope” is optimism. Freedom from hope is freedom to your soul. You can no longer hurt yourself by living. It is hard to believe that being hopeless leads to living, but living is an imprisonment. We try to be the best we can be but does life limit us?
The Hope is here, but the way is unclear, all we have to do is wait and we will find the way. We must follow this way offered to us and we will achieve the happiness that we always wanted. In that way, our hope is not wasted.