Later Irene started to ponder about Hope. Hope, that faint creature with the soft feathers who dwelled near the sun. The quiet one who dwelled in a slender sapling with many branches and green leaves. Why does Hope so easily slip through the fingers, and why during the strongest gale? She rests on her branch close to the heart. Rests gently and with great calm, waiting to be held. Has rested there, before there were good-byes, and cries and lies. Irene was waiting to hear bird song during the morning every day. She felt lonely and frightened now. Stubborn Helen! She should have realized that the old days were gone now. Irene begged Emma to ask her to listen, but Helen denied that anything was amiss. Irene might be intelligent, but she didn't know everything. The present would stop all this nonsense soon and everything would be back to how things used to be. Nothing was going to change. That was her declaration. Emma whispered it to Irene in a different way, so she understood. Even if Emma hadn't spoken, Irene would have noticed it the next morning, when rumors began drifting through the breezes and growing from the ground. Rumors, previously only spoken in the stillness of night in complete darkness, became heard in the crisp sunrise. Simply swam round and round. Despair, that harsh hawk, swooped down from the sky.
In order to match Hurston's use of language and objextives, I chose to personify hope as a bird-like creature. This is partially based off of Emily Dickinson's poem "Hope", which uses language that is similar to Hurston. I also used assonance and references to the sun and wind, as Hurston does in Their Eyes Were Watching God.
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