Robert Frost's Desert Places and Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

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Robert Frost's "Desert Places" and "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"

Robert Frost takes our imaginations to a journey through wintertime with

his two poems "Desert Places" and "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening". Frost

comes from a New England background and these two poems reflect the beautiful

scenery that is present in that part of the country. Even though these poems

both have winter settings they contain very different tones. One has a feeling

of depressing loneliness and the other a feeling of welcome solitude. They show

how the same setting can have totally different impacts on a person depending on

their mindset at the time. These poems are both made up of simple stanzas and

diction but they are not simple poems.

In the poem "Desert Places" the speaker is a man who is traveling

through the countryside on a beautiful winter eventing. He is completely

surrounded with feelings of loneliness. The speaker views a snow covered field

as a deserted place. "A blanker whiteness of benighted snow/ With no expression,

nothing to express". Whiteness and blankness are two key ideas in this poem.

The white sybolizes open and empty spaces. The snow is a white blanket that

covers up everything living. The blankness sybolizes the emptyness that the

speaker feels. To him there is nothing else around except for the unfeeling snow

and his lonely thoughts.

The speaker in this poem is jealous of the woods. "The woods around it

have it - it is theirs." The woods symbolizes people and society. They have

something that belongs to them, something to feel a part of. The woods has its

place in nature and it is also a part of a bigger picture. The speaker is so

alone inside that he feels that he is not a part of anything. Nature has a way

of bringing all of her parts together to act as one. Even the animals are a

part of this wintery scene. "All animals are smothered in their lairs,/ I am

too absent-spirited to count". The snow throws its blanket of whiteness over

everything and to him it is a feeling of numbness.

"The loneliness includes me unawares". The speaker has lost his

enthusiasm for life. He can not express his feelings easily because of this

feeling of numbness. The speaker is also in denial about feeling alone. He is

at a stage where he just does not care about too much and he is feeling a bit

paranoid. "They cannot scare me with their empty space." He is saying who cares

how I feel, I do not need anyone else.

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