In literature realism is an attempt to describe human behavior and surroundings or to represent figures and objects exactly as they act or appear in life. Realism is concerned directly with what is absorbed by the senses. The poems, “‘Hope’ Is the Thing with Feathers” and “If You Were Coming in the Fall” by Emily Dickinson rare poems which were written in the realist time period. Realism is evident in the descriptive phrases the author uses to paint a mental picture for the reader and to have the reader imagine the smells and feelings of objects in the poems and by using clear direct prose.
In Emily Dickinson’s poem, “‘Hope’ Is the Thing with Feathers”; the poem is comparing the feeling of hope to that of a bird in a person’s soul. In the third line she writes that the bird “perches in the soul – and sings the tune without words. ” In this stanza Emily Dickinson is trying to create the image of hope staying inside a soul of a person, staying there quietly not to bother the person but there if ever needed. Throughout the rest of the poem she writes that she heard the bird in hardest times and the bird never asked anything of her.
She is basically saying that hope is always there for her in the hardest situations but she never owes anything back to it. In this poem realism is shown through the use of words to create a picture of what the author sees hope as. In another of Emily Dickinson’s poem, “If You Were Coming in the Fall”, she again writes with the intent to have the reader picture the scene that she is imagining through her descriptions. In line six of her poem she writes about counting the months until the person that she is waiting for arrives.
Instead of simply stating that she counts the months she writes: “I’d wind the months in balls – And put them each in separate Drawers, For fear the numbers fuse. ” In using this description not only does she get the point across but she also gives the reader an image. Also in the first stanza of the poem she compares her manner in which she’d brush away the summer months to the way housewives brush away a fly. In doing this Emily Dickinson sets a mood and attitude for the way in which she wished she could pass summer by indiscreetly.
Emily Dickinson authored simply written poems that developed the theme of realism. In her poetry she often compared an emotion to some type of animal or animate object to convey her feelings better and set a tone for that emotion. Realism is evident in the two poems in the way that she writes about a truthful event in life by using direct prose also as the poems were written to describe things that can be felt with the senses, which is one of the essential qualities of realism.