The Use of Symbolism in Robert Frost's Wind and Window Flower

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The Use of Symbolism in Robert Frost's Wind and Window Flower

I interpreted this poem as a very sad one. A love unrequited by the pursued. In the first two lines the poem tells you to forget about the love you share and hear a tale of this. Not to literally forget, but possibly put aside. The man is a winter breeze, cold and rough and sort of roams the land. The woman is a window flower, shut off from the outside. This sets up the separation.

They can "see" each other and are kept apart by a glass wall. She has all the comforts of the outside, the warmth of the sun and even the company of a "caged yellow bird" (7) hanging above her. It is almost that the mention of this bird being caged above her is a symbol of this woman's status in the home and possibly provided by the wealth of her parents. Although she is shut off from the outside, there is this bird almost captured for her to dissuade her from having thoughts of her actual closed lifestyle. She is being furnished with creature comforts instead of with freedom. Maybe because those above her feel she cannot ha...

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