Robert Frost: A Man of Many Faces
Uploaded by frollypoo on Mar 02, 2002
Many individuals have a direct vision on life. Robert Frost, an American poet, was born in San Francisco, California, on March 26, 1874. During his youth he attended respectively, the Universities of Dartmouth and Harvard, but never obtained a degree. In 1912, Frost moved his family to England because of lack of luck in publishing his poetry. It was in England that Frost gained the reputation of being a strong literary poet; but Frost longed to be accepted at home so, in 1915, returned to America, where he was now well renowned. A distinguishing literary characteristic that Frost possesses is, the gift of taking an ordinary experience and transforming it into a meditative moment, for the reader to philosophically muse over. Frost also writes with surface cheerfulness and descriptiveness in his poems, he often presents a dark and sober vision of life. “The Death of the Hired Man”, “Blueberries” and “After Apple-Picking” strongly illustrates Frost’s melancholic outlook on life.
“The Death of the Hired Man”, conveys a message of a man’s pitied life, as told by Frost. For instance, a man named Warren comes home to his wife to find that, “Silas is back”. Silas was a past employee that left him at a time of need. Warren feels no compassion towards Silas’ downfall. Lawrence Thompson cited that Warren’s bitter attitude towards Silas was because he left and now “he has come home to die”. Warren mocks his wife’s kind words of Silas and does not forgive and forget the past. Kyle Johnson added that Warren is still very much hurt because of what Silas had done to him. Warren had said, “no, but he hurt my heart the way he lay.” Obviously, Silas and Warren were very close at one, time but Silas betrayed their friendship and Warren could find no sympathy in his heart for his ‘friend’ and help him in his time of need. “The Death of a Hired man” is the story of a man, Silas, who lived his life recklessly, made some bad decisions and in the end was left alone to die by himself, with not a friend in the world.
“Blueberries” induces a harsh message that many people realize in their lives. For example, a man asks his friend Loren if he can pick some of his beautiful berries growing in his orchard, Loren agrees, and the man picks the berries recalling what...