Social Isolation In Robert Frost's Acquainted With The Night

The theme of isolation is apparent in all three poems. While detailing his morning in Those Winter Sundays, Robert Hayden writes that he walked by his father, “…speaking indifferently to him (Hayden 11)”. This disconnect form his father created isolation for not just one of them, but for both of them. This isolation led to loneliness. Hayden later writes, “What did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices (Lee 49)”. In Eating Alone, the speaker loses his father. He isolates himself to cope with the grief, and remains bitter and lonely. This is shown in line 22, “And my own loneliness (Lee 49)”. In My Papa’s Waltz, Theodore Roethke writes of a child being abused by his father. The speaker says, “You beat time on my head with a palm caked by dirt, then waltzed me off to bed, still clinging to your shirt (Roethke 109)”. The child may be with his father, but he is still isolated from him. This isolation causes loneliness.

Robert Frost uses a variety of writing techniques and poetic themes throughout his poems that deal with everyday life in a rule environment. In Frost’s poem “Acquainted with the Night”, he uses the theme of Isolation vs. dissatisfaction and man vs. the natural world to make it significant to the reader that the narrator is all alone with hardly any human contact. The way that Frost has his poems formatted is so that when reading the poem sounds as though there are footsteps as if the reader could hear the man walking. He also uses metaphors throughout the poem to indicate how lonely this man is.

In this poem there is a lot of figurative language. One of the biggest types of figurative language used in this poem is irony. The irony in this poem is how the mother wouldn't let her child go to march because she feared her child would get hurt. Instead she sent her child to church because she believed it was a safe and sacred place but ironically the church ended up being bombed. Another piece of figurative language that is very effective in this poem is imagery. The way the poem is written helps me create images in my head for example, "She raced through the streets of Birmingham." I can imagine her running around desperately, looking for her child. The metaphors and hyperboles in this poem also help with the imagery, for example, "...night dark hair," and "…rose-petal sweet." These metaphors make me think of the girls smoothly combed black hair and her fresh and beautiful rosy smell. A hyperbole that had a huge effect on the tone was, "But that smile was the last smile to ever come upon her face." This hyperbole really helps me understand the effect of a tragic moment like this and how it can completely ruin

In this poem, symbolism is used to help reader’s find deeper meaning in the little things included and show that everything comes back to the father’s fear of the child he adores growing older and more independent. “In a room full of books in a world of stories, he can recall not one, and soon he thinks the boy will give up on his father.” This sentence makes a reader assume that the story the five year old so

The author uses imagery in the poem to enable the reader to see what the speaker sees. For example, in lines 4-11 the speaker describes to us the

Anyone can relate to the feeling of being lonely at one point in their life. In result, when someone feels lonely it’s probably because they are not around friends or family, and just want to be able to have conversation. It also could mean someone wants to stray themselves away from the crowd because they want to be alone, that being said, everyone needs those silent moments to have for themselves. However, whichever situation it may be people still feel that “loneliness” every once in a while, and that’s what this poem is relaying.

The author uses symbols to help the reader understand his theme. In the poem, the three most important symbols are the

     Last stanza of the poem talks about the emptiness that is so overwhelming that even when Frost looks up to the sky, all that he could see or feel is still loneliness and emptiness. But then Frost mentions that the emptiness or loneliness that he fears the most isn’t the one that exist on

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

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

First, both poems effectively demonstrate the different receptions of isolation through their use of language. In “Acquainted with the Night” Frost establishes his feelings of the night. Robert Frost personifies that the narrator is “one acquainted with

“Acquainted with the Night” by Robert Frost dramatizes the conflict that the speaker experiences with the outside world, which has rejected him, or perhaps which he has rejected. The poem is composed of fourteen lines and seven sentences, all of which begin with “I have.” Frost’s first and last line, “I have been one acquainted with the night,” emphasizes what it means for the speaker to be “acquainted with the night” (line 1; 14). The speaker describes his walk in the night as journey, in which he has “walked out of rain—and back in rain” and “outwalked the furthest city light” (line 2-3). Through the depiction of the changing weather conditions, Frost signifies the passage of time, perhaps indicating that the narrator has been on his journey for a lengthy period of time and has traveled through many cities. Furthermore, the imagery of the rain at night creates a forlorn atmosphere in the poem.

Due to events that have occurred in their lives, they may become depressed. After a period of time the depression may worsen and become a serious problem. People with chronic depression will start to shut off from the world around them. They no longer want to do what once brought them great joy. People with the disease may resort to severe measures to try to get rid of the pain and emptiness they feel inside; whether it be self harm, suicide, drugs, or alcohol. When someone lives in a constant world of darkness and hollowness it can feel like they just want to “draw the curtains” and make the “sky go(es) black” permanently (line 22). Just like in the poem, depression can feel like an “unsealed aperture,” and is a disastrous storm (line

Robert frost does an excellent job of portraying a lonely man in his story. He does this in a very unique way, and it starts with the name, acquainted with the night. The title itself implies that the character he is writing about, is very familiar with being by him/herself, and has been that way for a while. The quote from the story, “and I dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain” (Robert Frost) relates to the oedipus tragedy by oedipus prosecuting himself. This quote and the story make sense together because after oedipus gouges his eyes, and is banished, he drops his head and does not want to explain. After oedipus shuns himself he is alone in his pain, and will not share, much like this quote from the poem, “I have stood still and stopped

“The problem of alienation is a pervasive theme in the classics of sociology, and the concept has a prominent place in contemporary work”(Seeman). Alienation is one of the biggest problems in the modern world today. From being alienated at work to your skin color, almost everyone has been alienated in some way or form. In many poems by the 20th century poet, Robert Frost, he focuses on different forces of alienation throughout the New England area. Robert, born in 1874, was raised in New England, stirring the fire for his poem. Many call him one of the best poets in American history. The majority of his poems start as simple word pictures, then move toward vivid and complex ideas. In the poems, Mending wall, Out Out, and Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, Frost expresses many types of alienation.