Robert Frost
takes our imaginations to a journey through wintertime with his two
poems
"Desert Places" and "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy
Evening". Frost
comes from a New
England background and these two poems reflect the beautiful
scenery that is present
in that part of the country. Even though
these poems both
have winter
settings they contain very different tones.
One has a feeling of
depressing
loneliness and the other a feeling of welcome solitude. They show
how the same
setting can have totally different impacts on a person depending on
their mindset at
the time. These poems are both made up
of simple stanzas and
diction but they
are not simple poems.
In the poem "Desert Places" the
speaker is a man who is traveling through
the countryside
on a beautiful winter eventing. He is
completely surrounded with
feelings of
loneliness. The speaker views a snow
covered field as a deserted
place. "A blanker whiteness of benighted snow/
With no expression, nothing to
express". Whiteness and blankness are two key ideas in
this poem. The white
sybolizes open
and empty spaces. The snow is a white
blanket that covers up
everything
living. The blankness sybolizes the
emptyness that the speaker feels.
To him there is
nothing else around except for the unfeeling snow and his lonely
thoughts.
The speaker in this poem is jealous of the
woods. "The woods around it
have it - it is
theirs." The woods symbolizes
people and society. They have
something that
belongs to them, something to feel a part of.
The woods has its
place in nature
and it is also a part of a bigger picture.
The speaker is so alone
inside that he
feels that he is not a part of anything.
Nature has a way of bringing
all of her parts
together to act as one. Even the animals
are a part of this wintery
scene. "All animals are smothered in their
lairs,/ I am too absent-spirited to
count". The snow throws its blanket of whiteness over
everything and to him it is
a feeling of
numbness.
"The loneliness includes me unawares". The speaker has lost his
enthusiasm for
life. He can not express his feelings
easily because of this feeling
of numbness. The speaker is also in denial about feeling
alone. He is at a stage
where he just
does not care about too much and he is feeling a bit paranoid.
"They cannot
scare me with their empty space."
He is saying who cares how I
feel, I do not need anyone else. "I have in me so much nearer home/ To
scare
myself with my
own desert places". The speaker was
starting to realize that he
had shut himself
off to the world. He recognized that
this winter place was like his
life. He had let depression and loneliness creep
into his life and totally take over
like the snow had
crept up on the plain and silently covered it.
If he continues to
let these
feelings run his life, eventually everything would be snuffed out much like
the snow does to
nature.
"Stopping by Woods on a Snowny
Evening" is a much happier and more
upbeat poem than
"Desert Places". This poem is
about stopping to enjoy life or
as the cliche
goes, stopping to smell the roses.
"But I have promises to keep,/
and miles to go
before I sleep". The speaker in
this poem was a very busy man
who always had
obligations to fufill and places to go.
A feeling of regret is
present. The man would like to stay and enjoy this
private nature scene longer
but he knows that
he has other things to do. Again, Frost
gives us a beautiful
nature scene but
this time we enjoy welcome solitude.
"The woods are lovely,
dark and
deep". This poem expresses the joy
of nature.
The speaker seems concerned about what the
rest of society would think
about him just
stopping in the middle of nowhere for no apparent reason. His
horse represents
society. "My little horse must
think it queer/ To stop without a
farmhouse
near". He admits that just stopping
does seem odd. He is also
somewhat
concerned about the man who owns the woods.
The man almost feels
guilty for
looking so lovingly at this other man's woods.
"He will not see me
stopping here/ To
watch his woods fill up with snow".
I think that the speakers life
may be a little
better off since he stopped to take a deep breath and enjoy all that
really matters,
the simple things.
"Stopping by Woods an a Snowy
Evening" is the opposite of "Desert
Places". The settings were exactly the same; calm,
dark wintery evenings, but
they express
totally different feelings. "Desert
Places" is a very depressing poem
with a dark
tone. The other is very happy and it
makes you wish that winter was
already here.
These two poems are very different but
they are also the same in some
ways. They show two extremes of the same
emotion. Being alone can be
positive or
negative it just depends on the state of the mind. Loneliness can be
very depressing
or it can be a time to collect your thoughts without the pressures
of the outside
world crashing down. Winter is the
perfect season to reflect upon
when expressing
solitude. Winter can make everything
seem dead. It can be a
very depressing
time of year. Snow covers everything
living and the cold seems
to chill to the
very soul at times. Winter can also be
very uplifting. It can wipe the
slate clean with
its pureness and it can be a time of starting over. Snow's
whiteness can, in
a way, blind you with its beauty and make you forget about your
troubles. Winter for me is a time of silent
reflection. I could sit for hours and
gaze
at the blowing
snow.
Robert Frost creates two winter scenes
with different outcomes. The first,
"Desert
Places" is a sad poem about loneliness and lost enthusiasm. "Stopping
by Woods on a
Snowy Evening" is a rather uplifting poem about enjoying simple
things in
life. Frost seems to draw upon his
experiences from living in rural New
England and
converts those experiences into beautiful poetry.
No comments:
Post a Comment