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Symbolic meaning of stopping by the woods on a snowy evening
Theme and symbolism in stopping by the woods on a snowy evening
Symbolic meaning of stopping by the woods on a snowy evening
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Every poem has its own individual meaning. Most of the time, it depends on who wrote the poem and how they were feeling when they wrote it. Robert Frost, in “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” shows that he had places to be rather where he wanted to be. The reader can always have a clue to what is going on by the initial poem idea.
Robert Frost was born on March 26, 1874 in San Francisco. He died on January 29, 1963 in Boston. His parents were William Prescott Frost Jr. and Isabelle Moodie. He went to Dartmouth College and later Harvard College but never receive a degree. His first poem he published was called, “My Butterfly.” “He was the co-valedictorian from Lawrence High School.” (Sarah Johnson) In the end, he married the co-valedictorian from high school. He got many awards and honors along the way. “He got the Pulitzer Prize in 1923, 1931, 1937 and 1943.” (Beacham Walton) He served as a Poetry Consultant to the Library of Congress. He also cited one of his poems at the inauguration before President John F. Kennedy. He accomplished many things in his life time. One of his more famous poems is called, “The Road Not Taken.”
In the first stanza of “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” you learn that there is guy looking at the woods that are owned by some other man. “He will not see me stopping here,” shows that the other guy has no idea. (Line 3) The guy is worried that he is committing an offense by looking at the woods because he does not own them. He practically steals the look at the woods. There is alliteration in the second, third, and four lines. There is a hyperbole in the fourth line that says, “To watch his woods fill up with snow.” (Line 4) He could not possibly wait until the woods fill up with snow comp...
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... more out of a poem when they truly understand the full meaning of it.
Works Cited
Arp, Thomas R., Greg Johnson, and Laurence Perrine. Perrine's Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense. 11th ed. Australia: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012. 807. Print.
Johnson, Sarah. "Brazosport College Library Research Database Access." Brazosport College Library Research Database Access. Web. 20 Apr. 2014. .
Walton, Beacham. "Brazosport College Library Research Database Access." Brazosport College Library Research Database Access. Salem Press. Web. 20 Apr. 2014. .
The voice of the speaker in “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” is that of an individual that is stressed out or overwhelmed. He or she just needs to take a mental break from everything and, “stop by the words/to watch [them] fill with snow.” The reader knows that this person needs to take this mental break based upon how long they stay there. He or she stays in the woods so long that their horse “give his harness bells a shake/to ask if there is some mistake.” In other words, the horse is confused; here he stands in these woods “without a farmhouse near [and] the only other sound [he hears, aside from his own bells, are,] the sweep of easy wind and [a] downy flake.” This sense of being overwhelmed, and needing to take a mental break in order to remain sane, is something any reader can relate to, whether they have had a stressful day at work, a parent is using the poem as an example to show a child who has had a temper tantrum that they are being puni...
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Williams, Tennessee. Perrine's Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense. Arp, Thomas R., Greg Johnson, and Laurence Perrine. Australia: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012. Print.
We now know that we are in the real world in a natural setting a place where deer’s run. Also we know that the dark is nothing more than the cover of darkness in the night. Now that the dark is painted into our heads it will help us to visualize the poems significance. As we go through the poem he states that he sees a dead deer, “Traveling through the dark I found a deer dead on the edge of the Wilson River road” (1-2). Towards the end of the stanza he says “It is usually best to roll them into the canyon: that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead” (3-4). What he is saying is that one needs to move away from any situation which might not be ideal before harm comes aboard. He is calm and controlled and does not get overly excited thus keeping his emotions intact.
Arp, Thomas R., Greg Johnson, and Laurence Perrine. Perrine's Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense. Australia: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012. Print.
Fridy, Linda. "The Mid-County Post." The Mid-County Post. The Great Exchange, 15 Apr. 2009. Web. 18 Nov. 2009.
This poem is a clear representation of it's theme, maybe the most clear out of all of the poems. The speaker enters the woods, deeper and deeper they go, away from the people on the outside of the woods. He walks the opposite from others, if taken in a literal sense. “Against the trees I go” (Frost, Line 2) implies that he would rather walk away from others, as walking against the trees, instead of walking with them. Just looking at the poem, you see that the speaker is happy walking into the woods alone, and that this is where they come to be alone, away from others. As the poem goes on, it gets later but the speaker does not feel the pressure to leave. They slowly make their tracks in the snow. Snow is a symbol of isolation as well, for example, when snow is fresh. The snow looks so delicate, not to be touched. But, in this poem, no one had touched the snow. The speaker made his tracks in the snow because he was the only one there to make them. No one has come to this spot, and therefore it is isolated, only for him. As the poem
Gale Virtual Reference Library -. Gale. Niles North High School, Niles, NC. 3 Mar. 2008. The 'Standard' of the 'Standard'.
"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is a very well know poem by Robert Frost. The poem appears to be very simple, but it has a hidden meaning to it. The simple words and rhyme scheme of the poem gives it an easy flow, which adds to the calmness of the poem. The rhyme scheme (aaba, bbcb, ccdc, dddd) and the rhythm (iambic tetrameter) give the poem a solid structure. The poem is about the speaker’s experience of stopping by the dark woods in the winter evening with his horse and admiring the beauty of the fresh fallen snow in the forest. Then, the speaker projects himself into the mind of his horse, speculating about his horse’s practical concerns and the horse communicates by shaking his harness bells, and his head impatiently wanting to continue the homeward journey forward. The speaker also tells that he would like to stay but he has to continue home to take care of all the responsibilities before he can die peaceful.
"Stopping by Woods" The visible sign of the poet's preoccupation is the recurrent image of dark woods and trees. The world of the woods, a world offering perfect quiet and solitude, exists side by side with the realization that there is also another world, a world of people and social obligations. Both worlds have claims on the poet. He stops by woods on this "darkest evening of the year" to watch them "fill up with snow," and lingers so long that his "little horse" shakes his harness bells "to ask if there is some mistake." The poet is put in mind of the "promises" he has to keep, of the miles he still must travel. We are not told, however, that the call of social responsibility proves stronger than the attraction of the woods, which are "lovely" as well as "dark and deep"; the poet and his horse have not moved on at the poem's end. The dichotomy of the poet's obligations both to the woods and to a world of "promises"--the latter filtering like a barely heard echo through the almost hypnotic state induced by the woods and falling snow-is what gives this poem its singular interest.... The artfulness of "Stopping by Woods" consists in the way the two worlds are established and balanced. The poet is aware that the woods by which he is stopping belong to someone in the village; they are owned by the world of men. But at the same time they are his, the poet's woods, too, by virtue of what they mean to him in terms of emotion and private signification.
The first stanza can be interpreted in different ways. The speaker believes that he knows the woods where he is stopping, even though he is not near the village where the house is. In the line, "He will not see me stopping here, to watch his woods fill up with snow," the speaker may be a little concerned about who is watching him because he does not want people to talk about him in any other way than masculine. If he is seen watching the snowfall, then some might consider him less of a man. The speaker simply wants to sit and watch the snow fill up someone's woods.
Frost’s life was full of tragedies, yet he was still able to become an accomplished poet. According to Poets.org, Robert Lee Frost was born on March 26, 1874 in San Francisco. When he was only 11 years old, Frost’s dad, William Prescott Frost, Jr, passed away. The death of his father caused his mother, Isabelle Moodie, to move her family to Massachusetts. Frost became interested in poetry in high school. His first published poem was “My Butterfly.” This poem was published in 1894 in a New York newspaper called The Independent (Poets.org).
Robert Frost, a poet that mastered the imagery of nature through his words. Such vivid details compressed in a few stanzas explains the brilliancy of his writing. He was born on March 26, 1874, in San Francisco. By the 1920s, he was the most celebrated poet in America; with his fame and honor increasing as well. His poems created themes like nature, communication, everyday life, isolation of the individual, duty, rationality versus imagination, and rural life versus urban life. The most controversial theme of this poems is nature and if his poems have a dark side in them. Readers can easily be guided to the fact that his poems are centered on nature; however, it is not. Frost himself says, "I am not a nature poet. There is almost a person in