In the darkest places, the hardest times, or the lowest moments, hope can always be found. “Hope Is a Tattered Flag,” by Carl Sandburg, illustrates where hope can be found, even when it seems like all is lost. This optimistic poem focuses on the depth of hope and the many aspects of life in which it is found. The setting of the work is in America, in the period of depression and difficulty of the 1930s. In these difficult times, all people struggled to find a glimmer of hope wherever they could. Sandburg speaks to every class of people, appealing especially to the common man who faced the greatest hardships during this period, with his simple, unrhymed writing style. It uses images of familiar places like steel mills and salesrooms to speak to working-class citizens and shows simple symbols of hope that can be found in these places. Additionally, the poem uses specific word choices, allusions, and metaphors to further describe the symbols of hope encountered in the poem. Sandburg incorporates the concept of hope with the instability of America during the 1930s with the use of vivid imagery, word choice, and a free verse writing style to convey his theory of hope throughout the poem. Carl Sandburg was born on January 6, 1878, in Galesburg, Illinois. In his early school years, he only got to eighth grade before having to leave school to help support his family by doing many different jobs, including laying bricks and shining shoes. After working at various jobs, Sandburg traveled as a vagrant until joining the Army when the Spanish-American War broke out in 1898. When he returned from the war, he returned to school at Lombard College, which was where he had studied. learned for the first time about his... middle of paper......ct several visions of hope. In his poetry, Sandburg deliberately uses a free verse writing style. This style is best suited to Sandburg's purpose in writing poetry because it directly emphasizes the point of each line while appealing to the common man. The first line of the poem expresses, “Hope is a tattered flag and a dream out of time” (Sandburg 120). Here, “tattered” provides an indication of conflict. The “dream out of time” means that the dream of hope belongs to another era. During the time of the Depression, the American people had so many problems that they felt hope was unattainable. Mahony explains that this image “portrays hope as a survivor, emerging unscathed from the battle” (129). Sandburg uses clear and understandable language in his free verse style to convey his point of view to all types of people in an understandable way.