Robert Frost's 'Acquainted With The Night'

The four sections of Robert Frost’s poem “Acquainted with the Night” expresses the speaker’s personal effect from depression. It was inferred that Frost was in fact the speaker and he is alluding to his personal life though his writings as way to channel all his grief. It is also understood by the reader that the author is reminiscing his feelings and experiences with his struggle of depression in this poem. The poem begins with “I” and continues with that development in the beginning of each section.

The experience of darkness is both individual and universal. Within Emily Dickinson’s “We grow accustomed to the Dark” and Robert Frost’s “Acquainted with the Night,” the speakers engage in an understanding of darkness and night as much greater than themselves. Every individual has an experience of the isolation of the night, as chronicled in Frost’s poem, yet it is a global experience that everyone must face, on which Dickinson’s poem elaborates. Through the use of rhythm, point of view, imagery, and mood, each poet makes clear the fact that there is no single darkness that is too difficult to overcome.

The poetic techniques were symbolism, imagery, and tone. Symbolism is the most powerfully used technique due to the fact a good number of lines located in this poem is used to signify a certain object or idea related to our life or today’s world. Imagery in the sense that you can visualize the path, the yellow wood, the undergrowth, the divergence; it is all made very vivid. Frost did this throughout; you know trying to stimulate the reader’s mood using one’s senses. In this poem, imagery permits the reader to imagine the scene that this poem takes place in resulting in an enhanced understanding of the theme. The tone Frost’s work presents is an insecure attitude which allows the theme to be brought out due to the fact the theme relates to a dilemma in one’s life. These techniques strongly aid in the revealing of this specific theme.

Robert Frost had a fascination towards loneliness and isolation and thus expressed these ideas in his poems through metaphors. The majority of the characters in Frost’s poems are isolated in one way or another. In some poems, such as “Acquainted with the Night” and “Mending Wall,” the speakers are lonely and isolated from their societies. On other occasions, Frost suggests that isolation can be avoided by interaction with other members of society, for example in “The Tuft of Flowers,” where the poem changes from a speaker all alone, to realizing that people are all connected in some way or another. In Robert Frost’s poems “Acquainted with the Night,” “Mending Wall,” and “The Tuft of Flowers,” the themes insinuate the idea of loneliness

What makes camping in the woods a peaceful and serene experience yet also creates anxiety when walking city streets at night? What do the woods and the city have in common? Though both are compelling in different ways, they hold more similarities than you may realize. Earnest Hemingway illustrates how tranquil escaping to the isolation of the woods can be in his short story “Big Two-Hearted River”, while Robert Frost demonstrates the fear of isolation in his poem “Acquainted with the Night”. While both works show traumatized characters seeking solace through isolation, both present differing realities of what is found there: for Nick there is peace and reconciliation, and for Frost’s speaker there is only the terror of

Through his clever use of several poetic devices, Frost benefitedfrom the intensity, focus and interestof the reader. Each literary deviceworked in a concerted way to imprint on the reader,the image of a profound sense of darkness and sadness that had overcome the speaker. These emotions are likely whatcaused the speakerto take these long walks throughthe darkest of nights. Having read to the last line of the poem, it’s as if the reader had also become “acquainted with the night” and was in perfect synchronicity with

Many fear the night and what mysteries lurk inside it but poet Robert Frost views night in a very different way. In his poem "Acquainted with the Night", Frost uses repetition, tone, and symbolism to tell about the dark sad times he has experienced in his life. This poem tells a story about a man who walks around a lonely city during the nighttime. The repetition of words and phrases clearly shows Frost's view on night.

The early and later life of Robert Frost was entailed with many hardships that influenced a variety of themes and key concepts within his works such as thematic ideas surrounding the simple pleasures taken for granted in life until they disappear, evident in Frost's poem "Birches," and city life opposed to farm life, evident in "Acquainted with the Night." Robert Lee Frost was born on March 26, 1874 in San Francisco, California to William Prescott Frost Jr and Isabelle Moody Frost. The two had on other child, Jeanie Frost, in 1876 when their son was two. Frost childhood was pervaded with hardships stemming mostly from the actions of his father. Frost's father was an alcoholic who drank and gambled the family's funds into oblivion while exercising

The poem has a balanced rhythm and the first line rhymes with the third and final line of each stanza until the final stanza. The final stanza completes the circle and repeats the initial line of the poem. In addition to the rhyming within each stanza, Frost wrote this poem to consistently throughout where each stanza had exactly ten syllables and every other word was stressed while reading. This poem also uses night as a metaphor. Throughout the poem, darkness is represented by the night. It doesn’t represent death, but it is more of a metaphor for depression or sadness. The poem tells of a man that is walking alone at night through a city. The narration of the poem not only uses night as a metaphor, it also uses imagery and symbolism to enhance the depth of the poem. In the poem, the man hears a cry “far away”(Frost 503) and he is said to have “outwalked the city light.”(Frost 503) This symbolism is used to depict the man as being alone and not around anything. He has walked away from all the lights of the city and is in the darkness of the night. No one else is around and people would have a hard time hearing him from where he is. When the man passed a watchman, he “dropped my eyes.”(Frost 503) He seemed shy and distant and refused to make any sort of contact with other individuals. In addition to the darkness, Frost writes that it is raining as the man is walking alone at night. The poet uses the dark setting, the

is saying, and Frosts personal pain that he is suffering from that he ingrains into this poem. The

In the poem Robert Frost uses his rhyme scheme and rhythm to have the sadness flow throughout the entire poem, as his use of terza rima is used to rhyme his words together.\ He also uses alliteration, as to put a point the words in and have the poem have it deep meaning. The sounds used help give it the sad and lonely vibe its suppose to go off, it also gives the poem a simple reading but in reality it has a much deeper meaning, “But not to call me back or say good-by; And further still at an unearthly height One luminary clock against the sky”as

Robert Frost’s poem, “Acquainted with the Night”, displays the theme of loneliness and depression by using symbolism with dark undertones to suggest that isolation can be crippling. First seen when the author writes, “I have passed by the watchman on his beat / And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain,” (lines 5-6). The use of a metaphor supports the theme of loneliness because the watchman is a representation of all other people, and is meant to imply that the main character feels that they cannot speak their thoughts out loud (perhaps because they fear that no one will understand them). Another example that supports this theme occurs when Frost provides readers the line, “I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet,” (line 7). This

The first stanza immediately establishes the speaker and uses a unique choice of words to describe the scene. “I” is used to begin each line in the first stanza, which ultimately leads the reader to believe that “I” is the speaker. “I” also is the first sign of isolation suggested by Frost. Specifically, the very first line of the poem suggests personal point of view from the speaker. The usage of “one” and “acquainted” are unique in this poem due to the fact that “one” can suggest that this night may not have been the first

In the poem, “Acquainted with the Night”, Robert Frost speaks of wandering the city at night. He speaks of the night like a friend, but in reality he is friendless. Through his use of hyperboles and imagery, the author provides an in-depth look of what he feels and experiences at night.

Therefore, in the second stanza “Too dark in the woods for a bird,” (line 5), he uses this imagery to express that even birds cannot live in the woods because of how much darkness is present. Birds singing resemble happiness, and the woods and its darkness are showing two scenes contradicting each other, showing in some way the deeper meaning beyond the literal one. Another symbol used by Frost was light, symbolizing hope: “The last of the light of the sun.” In this line he gives a clue to the reader expressing how even though it was dark, there could still be a chance for light to come in those woods for some hope and maybe