Frost and Death
Uploaded by Jeremeamia on Aug 18, 2002
There are many reoccurring themes throughout poetry. In Robert Frost’s poetry, he uses symbols found in nature to express the meaning of his poems. Robert Frost was not like other poets in his time; he wrote about nature like the Romantics. He did not use free verse like the other poets of his time either. Robert Frost dwelt upon death in a lot of his poetry. He believed that people should make the best of their lives and live life to the fullest. In his poem “Come In,” Frost tells the reader that people must resolve all of their conflicts before they die. As in all of Frost’s poetry, he uses strong symbols from nature to represent death. As in some of his other poems, he uses the woods and darkness to represent death. He also uses the amount of light and the time of day to represent life and death. The bird, or thrush, in the poem and its music is a symbol for how death calls out to people. By identifying and understanding the symbols in the poem, it is easier to discover the underlying meaning.
Frost uses the woods and darkness to symbolize death. This is a common symbol in many of Frost’s other poems. In “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” Frost uses the woods to symbolize death as well. In the first line of “Come In,” the speaker says, “As I came to the edge of the woods.” This symbolizes that the speaker is coming near death or feels that he is going to die soon. The woods are so dark that even a bird with dexterous flying skills cannot move to find a better perch. This statement, in lines five through seven, gives the reader a greater sense to how dark it is. In line thirteen, Frost gives even more emphasis to the darkness of the woods when he refers to how the trees look in the darkness as “the pillared dark.” This suggests that the woods and the dark are one. In the last stanza, the speaker refuses the song of the thrush and decides not go into the woods. The speaker obviously has some reason to stay alive or something to settle, and that is why he would not go in.
Robert Frost uses the time of day and the amount of light to symbolize certain stages in life. This is common in...