Death in Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening Essay

Poems are like snowflakes. While no two are the same, they all have common structures and themes. One prevalent theme in poetry is that of death, which is present in both “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost. Dickinson perceives death as a gentleman, while Frost perceives death as loneliness, which provides insight on how the time periods of the poems, the genders of the authors, and the authors’ personal experiences influence literature.

In the second stanza it is the semantic field of cold: ‘winter’, ‘ice’, ‘naked’, ‘snow’. All these lexical items give us a feeling of cold which evokes loneliness, unknown, fear.

why he stopped, may be he doesn’t know himself. May be, he is comparing the beauty of nature to something, but on a symbolic level, the snow strongly reminds me that the poem is set in winter, and which is also widely represented as the image of death.

The two poems “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” and “Acquainted with the Night” written by Robert Frost are very similar to each other because of the simplistic form of language used and the uses of metaphors. When we first read the poem, it looks like an ordinary poem but once we go in depth and understand the meaning, it becomes so much more. Both of the poem has a very dark, gloomy and lonely setting with a really mysterious tone. There are different metaphors used in each poem to symbolize death; “Sleep” in “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” and “Night” in “Acquainted with the Night.” The characters in the two poem are both in a journey and has come

In “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, Frost describes a thick patch of woods that are a long way from anything. He does not go into great detail describing them, leaving that to the reader’s imagination. He merely describes them as “lovely, dark and deep.” This lack of detail is to help us focus not so much on all the things that are there, as the things that aren’t. He mentions that the horse must be thinking that this is strange to stop here, with no barn near. The only thing that is nearby is nature. The lake is frozen and the trees and ground are covered with snow. During a snowstorm, sound does not travel very well. It is very muddled and muted. The only sounds that are mentioned in the poem are the bells on the horse’s harness and the wind. So, the rider is stopping to smell the roses. He is taking a break from the world around

“Passed”, “No longer with us”, “kicked the bucket”, and so on can all be used as descriptions of the mysteriously feared death. Both John Donne and Dylan Thomas write these poems based on the loss of a loved one. Although they both let death affect them, how it affects them is contradicting. Although John Donne’s “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning,” was sympathetically caring, the theme of death displayed by a personal lesson, imagery, and repetition can also be seen in the aggressively abrasive poem “Do not go gentle into that good night” by Dylan Thomas. Both authors have different emotions towards the loss of a loved one and how their life is going to be after this death.

When reading “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” Robert Frost takes more of a straight forward approach, which dealt with mostly the character’s internal emotions. In Frost’s “Stopping by woods on a snowy evening” he uses an AABA BBCB CCDC DDDD rhyme scheme with the last stanza wrapping up the poem and answering all questions. The main character is contradicting himself throughout the whole poem. His mind is telling him one thing and his heart is telling him another. The speaker finds every excuse to stay and “watch these woods fill up with snow” but finally comes to his senses and realizes he has “miles to go before he sleeps”. He never mentions any physical pain or even being cold for that matter. He only mentions the horse being confused for stopping, it being the darkest evening of the year and how the owner of the property would never see him stopping there. His horse represents the speaker’s conscience. “My little horse must

At the peak of winter, trees are “shagged with ice,” having sat in one place for the duration of the season. The mind of winter which regards the scene is therefore required to have sat still alongside the scenery, and so the adjectives describing the trees should be read as interchangeable with those describing the viewer.

A poem is an experience, not a thought. It is an experience both the author and the reader share with one another. Authors of poems use tones, keywords, hidden messages, irony, and diction to create their work. They use these tactics so the reader thinks about what they are reading and try evaluating what the message is that the reader wants to get across. In the poem “Snow” by Louis MacNeice, he uses these same characteristics to get the readers mind active in the words. Let’s examine the poem “Snow” and see what the meaning behind this poem is.

Similarly, Frost also uses descriptive adjectives to portray a significant moment in time, which creates imagery for the reader. In “Stopping by a Woods on a Snowy Evening” Frost uses the rule of three by listing the adjectives “lovely, dark and deep”. This, along with the alliteration in “dark and deep” creates a powerful image of the woods. By doing this, Frost is being metaphorical as the woods themselves represent solidarity and peace “He will not see me here” the personal pronoun “he” meaning society or God. Essentially, Frost is saying that when one steps out of life’s routine, it can be “lovely, dark and deep” which comes across as mysterious and unusual. It could also be said that because the three adjectives used are simple, they can be accessible for anyone to relate to.

The metaphorical journey of Death and the speaker represents an artistic portrayal of the process of death. Death is introduced by the speaker at the beginning of the poem in a unique way. The poem begins with the lines, “Because I could not stop for Death— / He kindly stopped for me—” (Lines 1-2). The poem begins at the point in the speaker’s life when death is literally at her door. The beginning of the poem coincides with the beginning of the process of death for the speaker.

Lowell and Frost , each use a unique tone of voice in their poems. In Frost’s poem “Stopping By The Woods on a Snowy Evening” , he expresses a dreamy, soothing, comforting, preserving tone. “His house in the village though;” in opening stanza, Frost narrator, Santa Claus, stops at a village. When thinking of a village, a warmth and comforting feeling come to mind. The village creates a warm, soothing setting. In stanza 4, he repeats “ And miles to go before I sleep,” , two times. Even though Santa is exhausted, he refuses to give up. Opposing to Lowell’s “The First Snowfall” , where he fabricates a depressing tone. “THE SNOW had begun in the night gloaming,”

     In the next four lines, the speaker goes on to express the isolation of the woods and on the winter solstice, or “the darkest evening of the year”. The speaker lays the responsibility of saying that it is strange to be her on his little horse who “must think it queer”. The speaker is in isolation in the growing dark, yet he stops and stays in the lonely woods. The line, “between the woods and frozen lake” gives a sense of being trapped and having no escape. He is ensnared between the ever growing foreboding of the woods and an icy expanse that could prove deadly. Also, throughout history, the winter solstice has been a night of superstitions, of fear and loathing. It seems strange that with all of this, the man still desires to be alone in a dark wood when he has a long way to travel yet before he gets home. In a way, the speaker is intentionally isolating himself from society.

When Frost does stop in nature this pause could be thought of as a mental pause in his life as well as physical; when Frost stops in nature his duties and "promises" are also paused so he can truly be with nature without being hindered with thoughts of his responsibilities in the "village", representing society. This shows how the splendour of nature can weaken mans' resolve to adhere to his duties and responsibilities in the stressful life of society.

The night symbolized death, and the walk was the person's journey to find their lost life. This poem was somewhat disturbing to me. I thought of a lost soul, thirsting to finish a mission that was not completed in life. Frost depicts death in a frightening manner with the contents of this piece of work.