Analysis Of Two Robert Frost Poems

Term Paper Title	Analysis Of Two Robert Frost Poems
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Analysis of Two Robert Frost Poems

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 Wood...

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