Use Of Diction In Acquainted With The Night

Feelings of isolated darkness are something everyone is acquainted with sometime in their life, no matter how drastic the situation is, everyone experiences dark struggles. In the poem, “Acquainted With the Night,” Robert Frost illuminates how difficult, lonely hardships affects people. In “Acquainted With the Night,” a man, or the speaker, is on a night walk, pondering his life. Everywhere he walks, he feels disclosed from everything and everyone around him. The speaker in “Acquainted With the Night,” is an average person describing his personal numerous miseries. Because of these hardships, he feels lonely and detached from his life, yet he knows that time must go on and he must carry his struggles with him. During his walk, the speaker

in “Acquainted With the Night” presents how everyone goes through hardships and feels acquainted with darkness.

Through the lonely speaker, a detached tone is expressed with the use of selective diction, deep symbolism, and reflective allusion working together to form the meaning of the poem that hardships bring us to detachment from life because it causes us to feel isolated from others.
Frost’s application of diction in “Acquainted With the Night” expresses the meaning that hard times provides isolation through key words that provide the audience with proof that the speaker is communicating a detached mood. In line 1, “acquainted,” is a vital use of diction to show the meaning. The word acquainted means to know very well. When the speaker is saying he is “acquainted with the night” in line 1, he is indicating that he is familiar with the lonely night. By being “acquainted” with darkness, or the night, in his life, the speaker is illustrating how being in an isolated state of life is not new to him. The meaning of detached feelings because of hardships is revealed

through the speaker’s “acquainted” relationship with the night because he describes how he is familiar with loneliness. The night is a symbol of darkness and loneliness, and when the speaker states that he is “acquainted with the night” (line 1), he is expressing that he is conversant with solitude during hardships. He has already been accustomed with sorrow and misery, so this metaphorical lonely night walk is normal for him. Furthermore, in line 3, the word “furthest” also indicates the meaning. When the speaker “outwalked the furthest city light” (line 3), he implied that he had mentally walked past all the light in his life, even the furthest one. The word furthest is used to present how adversity causes desolation by throwing a powerful impact to the audience about how the speaker had walked past even the furthest light he had remaining in his life, illustrating how he has become detached and now lives a forsaken life. The meaning was expressed through Frost’s selective use of diction to describe how the speaker had gone through difficult times, and left all the light in his life behind him, leaving him in a lonely state.
Symbolism is also used by Frost to assist unveiling the meaning in “Acquainted With the Night.” Symbolism in Frost’s poem is used to emphasize deeper meaning from something as simple as “the night” in lines 1 and 15.

The night is a symbol for dark moments of solitude during the speaker’s life. Through being “acquainted with the night” (line 1), the speaker is saying that he is familiar with darkness, proving how symbolism brings out a detached tone with the help of diction, saying that isolated darkness is something the speaker experiences regularly. The exertion of the night as symbolism creates an image for readers to realize that Frost did not actually mean nighttime in his poem; he used the night as symbolism to provide deeper insight and bring the image of our own dark times to describe as “the night”(line 1) just as the speaker of “Acquainted With the Night” did. Symbolism goes on to present itself in line 2, the “rain” is used as a symbol for tears and melancholy. The rain was not meant to be read literally, but rather symbolically as tears, or times of mourning over the harsh struggles in life, just as the speaker did when he “walked out in rain and back in rain” (line 2) meaning he walked into and out of life’s struggles. If the weather is cold and rainy, no one goes outside because of the gloomy clouds and cold rain. Similarly, no one reached out to the speaker in “Acquainted With the Night” during his gloomy periods of “rain”(line 2) or sadness, which expresses

the detached tone and provides the meaning of the poem that unhappiness causes loneliness. Frost proves the meaning of detachment from life and happiness through his symbol of the rain because the speaker felt alone during his dark times, and no one was willing to step out into the rain and help him during his time of mournful weeping. Symbolism is used throughout “Acquainted With the Night” to propose the meaning by bringing deeper significance into simple words such as the night and rain.
Allusions relating to detachment in “Acquainted With the Night” are also used by Frost to assert the meaning. An allusion to the moon is used in line 12 when the speaker was looking up to the “luminary clock against the sky.” This allusion of a clock to the moon was used by Frost to tell readers that time goes on no matter what hardships are being endured. The speaker in the poem had to know this, which he did by realizing that there was no “wrong nor right” (line 13) time to endure hardships. The meaning that misery causes alienation in life is applied through the allusion of the “luminary clock” because the speaker knew he had to carry on with life despite his troubles that bring him to feel unattached from the rest of the world. The allusion to the moon is important for the meaning to be expressed because it gave a new twist to the poem, and the speaker finally realized that he had to look past his detachment from the light in his life, and finally move on.
Particular word choice such as “acquainted” and “further”, meaningful symbolism through “rain”(line 2) and “the night”(line 1), and the “luminary clock”(line 12) allusion all contribute to expressing the meaning of separation from happiness and meaning in life in “Acquainted With the Night.” Without the usage of diction, symbolism, and allusion, the poem would have less significance to the audience. The meaning of the poem is for readers to realize that everyone goes through harsh times and will feel detached from everything they knew and loved. A valuable lesson to be learned from Frost’s poem is that when a period of hardship approaches, realize that so many other people are going through hardships as well. Frost’s poem can help people see that time goes on, as he explained with the “luminary clock” (line 12) It is our own decision to choose if we will be negative and look “down the saddest city lane” (line4) or bring a more positive view and carry on with life, despite how hard it may seem to look passed the feelings of detachment.