“‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers” relies on an extended metaphor comparing “Hope” (Line 1) to “the thing with feathers” (Line 1). Though much of the poem seems to describe a bird, this poem is not a nature study. The speaker clarifies in the first line that the poem examines the concept of “Hope” (Line 1). The placement of “Hope” (Line 1) in quotation marks suggests that, like a quotation or a word being sourced for a dictionary definition, the word is taken from outside the text. This sense of displacement is reinforced by the way “Hope” (Line 1) carries the stress and emphasis as the first word, making the first foot of the line a trochee in an otherwise iambic line.

In their description of “the thing with feathers” (Line 1), the speaker attempts to describe and understand the abstract concept of hope. In fact, a close reading of the bird imagery reveals that the vehicle of the metaphor is quite ambiguous and may not be a bird whatsoever. The speaker hesitates to make the connection between “Hope” (Line 1) and the bird explicit, first calling it “the thing with feathers” (Line 1) instead of merely a bird.