Feathers

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of racism and bullying.

Drawing inspiration from Emily Dickinson’s poem “‘Hope’ Is the Thing With Feathers,” the author employs feathers as a symbol of hope throughout the novel. The narrator is in sixth grade, and she initially doesn’t understand that the poem compares hope to a bird, prompting some teasing from her brother: “The word doesn’t have feathers. It’s a metaphor. Don’t you learn anything at Price?” (3). Despite this confusion, Frannie identifies similarities between hope and feathers, such as how they are both light enough to “just float everywhere” (79). At the start of the novel, the protagonist struggles to find hope because she feels uneasy about growing up, anxious about her mother’s health, and troubled by Trevor’s bullying. She gradually grows in hope as she reflects on her experiences with the Jesus Boy and discovers a personal relationship with faith, building up to the story’s final sentence: “Each moment […] is a thing with feathers” (118). This observation illustrates Frannie’s newfound determination to live in the present and hold onto hope in spite of suffering and uncertainty.