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Analysis Of Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

Decent Essays

Don’t Worry About a Thing Like the Reggae artist Bob Marley sang, “Don’t worry about a thing because every little thing is gonna be alright.” In Robert Frost’s poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” Frost tells the story of a man and his horse who stop in the woods on snowy night to simply admire the beauty of nature as well as presenting the harshness of life. The poem is highly influenced by Frost’s life, and he uses conventional symbols, personification, and tone to show that even when there are obligations and hardships in life, moving on with those problems will help enjoying life. Frost’s use of conventional symbols suggests other meanings rather than being just natural scenery. Being that it was “the darkest evening of the year” (Frost 8), the speaker implies that there is a hint of death imagery. Frost is describing this night being the night his father died. Frost’s life “began in San Francisco where he was born in 1874, but he found his place of safety in New England when his family moved to Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1884 following his father’s death” (quoted from “Robert Frost”). With the setting being a dark winter’s night, the reader can see that these natural symbols are all pointing in the direction of death imagery. In fact, literary critic J. McBride Dabbs described the poem by saying it had “’the insistent whisper of death at the heart of life’” (quoted from “Robert Frost”). The speaker stops on this dark night to fully take in the beauty of

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