Frost's 'Reluctance' By Robert Frost

Willie Breslau

Professor Pollak

COML 1109

11/27/13

“Reluctance” by Robert Frost

An extended metaphor of a road, that represents the mans life and journey he has taken, runs throughout Robert Frost’s poem “Reluctance”. The title and the last line help to break through the metaphor and understand the meaning behind it, as Frost deliberates humans’ hesitation to accept change and the inevitability of a natural end, whether of “a love or a season”. “Reluctance,” along with several other Frost poems, focuses on the change of seasons and how the narrator reacts to that change. However, while each narrator of “Reluctance”, “Spring Pools”, and “Nothing Gold can Stay” display different emotions about the seasonal changes they witness, they all display humans hesitation to except change and to hold onto what they have in the present.

The sketch that I drew for this poem has a man who looks withered from travel with a long beard and wrinkled skin walking alone on a “highway”. Behind the narrator, I drew a small globe to represent that he is now returning from his travels around the world and in front of him a small town labeled home. Around the man stands on the highway are trees that have lost most of their leaves and leaves that are being blown on the snow covered ground. Other plants are drawn with fleeting life, as winter seems to be coming if not already here.

“Reluctance’ consists of five stanzas each having six lines. The meter of the poem is tricky. In Frost terms, this poem could be considered to be in loose iambic trimeter, but would be more aptly described as trimeter. One interesting feature of this poems meter is that the last line of each stanza switches from trimeter to dimeter. Each stanza consists of the rhyme sc...

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... In all three poems, change is represented as a transition between seasons with the narrator being enthralled by the present and not wanting time to change what they have. In “Reluctance” the seasons are more than actual seasons as the display a turning point in the narrators where he must decide to embrace change or follow his heart. In “Spring Pools” and “Nothing Gold Can Stay” the narrators both emphasize the short-lived beauty of nature because of the change in seasons and want so desperately the delay that change. However, both narrators almost reluctantly come to the conclusion that change can bring more beauty but are worried to lose what they have in the present. Frost’s mastery of poetry, nature, and human behavior are beautifully intertwined in these poems to create powerful messages that will continue to be relevant as mankind struggles to accept change.