The Symbolism of the 'Birches'

Frost has a compelling way of writing the poem, in the beginnings of the poem there is a lot of metaphors and descriptions of the setting and the saw and the boy. Once the boy is injured

The meaning that Frost is portraying is not obvious by the title of this poem. This poem is not literal it is meant to be metaphorical. Frost Personifies nature to have life-like traits. The title does not give you an idea of what the poem is about or what the poem means.

The style of the poem is more of a narrative, it paints a picture in my head of what is happening in it. It is not too long, but in the short length it spills a lot about the ideal of it. Frost is the main person speaking to us in this he is telling about his experience and how he's warning us about what could possibly happen.

In a poem known as Birches, Frost portrays an older man dreaming for a better life. He starts off with having this older man make his connection between realism and fantasy, setting the overall mood for this poem. The connection he makes is that he sees these trees have limbs that are bowed over and how that makes him think that a young boy has been swinging from those limbs. Although, he knows in reality that swinging will not cause that type of bend in a tree, but yet ice-storms do because of the build up from snow and ice on each limb. Frost then goes into detail about the surrounding area to create an image in the reader’s head, to set a scene, and to show how appreciative he is for the beauty of his surroundings. After the scene is set, he goes back into realism stating the real reason for the bending of the trees, which can have the reader make an insinuation that even with all the hardships faced in life, they have yet to give up, that they are still standing strong. Frost then has the old man shift back into fantasy where the old man states that he’d rather the trees have been bent from a little boys swinging amongst them. For he once was a swinger of trees and when the hardships of life become too much for he that he wishes to return to such. Frost also incorporate the use of religion in this particular poem, by having the old man state that he want to get away from earth for a while and then return to begin all over.

The speaker’s emphasis or in fact Frost’s emphasis on the word “I” leaves the audience to believe that there is no one there for him. Also he lives a secluded life that he wishes would change but because of his personal issues he is not able to connect with anyone else to resolve that issue. His continual usage leaves the reader to sense an aura of isolation and loneliness that is present throughout the entire poem. There are other characters present in the poem such as the watchmen, but he is just another mere human being who the speaker can’t interact with. His inability to make any sort of physical contact with the people that he meets,

Frost engages poetic structure to increase the irony of his poem, and interchanges between two different tones. Shock and appreciative are mixed together with lyrical lines. The tone shifts from rapid and

The characters are not ordinary characters but since Frost used personification it makes unreal objects "alive". Frost personified nature by saying that green is her hardest color to keep. Frost also personified the word Eden. Eden could also be known as the Garden of Eden. He wrote that eden sank to grief.

Frost also uses the trees in this poem to represent a way to get away from the cares and trials of life on Earth. He talks of getting away and coming back to start over as if climbing “towards heaven”. He desires to be free from it all, but then he says that he is afraid that the fates might misunderstand and take him away to never return. This is like most of us today. We want to go to Heaven, but we don’t want to die to get there.

As a child, one plays on the playground. The adventures happen amongst the swings. The escape and journey through the air causes the mind to wander and dream. The same way the speaker in Birches by Robert Frost uses his imagination to think of the dangling birches to be caused by a child at play. The feeling of going back and forth gives one the feeling of leaving earth for a little while and soaring above the trees. Feet towards the heavens and the feeling of one’s stomach dropping on the way down, gives a sense of release. As one goes through hard times, they look for that release from the world. The desire to get away is released through swinging to then be pulled back to earth. This same feeling was felt in Birches as a young boy rides

Furthermore, a second poetic device used in both of these poems was personification. In “Reluctance,” Frost personified the parts of his body to explain how torn he was about losing his love: “…The heart is still aching to seek/ But the feet question ‘Whither?’…” (Frost, 17-18). The personification in this stanza made the persona’s uncertainty and pain apparent and contributed to the establishment of the mood. If the persona himself had bluntly said that he wanted to look for his loved one but didn’t know where to look, the impact would not have been nearly as dramatic. Millay also used personification in her poem, “Time Does Not Bring Relief”. Personification was used to communicate the role time played in her life during her loss: “Time does not bring relief; you all have lied/ Who told me time would ease me of my pain…” (Millay, 1-2). The lack of involvement time had in the speaker’s life during her loss made it apparent how deeply grief-stricken she was. Nevertheless, if this poetic device had not been used to convey the theme, it would have turned out less impressive, if not awkward. Millay used an additional personification in her poem which was used to personify the rain: “…I miss him in the weeping of the rain…” (Millay, 3). The

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.

Frost affects the tone through word choice because he uses the word “perish” to give emphasis of the world vanishing. Instead of using words like disappear or leave, he uses perish because it gives the poem a stronger meaning. He also uses the word “destruction” to give the poem an intense feeling. By using this word, he makes the poem deeper and stronger than it already is.

Frost believes that being impartial to the boundaries and potential of human interaction can allow people in society to come to an agreement. The persona has demonstrated an aspect of the metaphysical, which is human

     Frost?s poem delves deeper into the being and essence of life with his second set of lines. The first line states, ?Her early leaf?s a flower.? After the budding and sprouting, which is the birth of nature, is growth into a flower. This is the moment where noon turns to evening, where childhood turns into maturity, and where spring turns into summer. At this very moment is the ripe and prime age of things. The young flower stands straight up and basks in the sun, the now mature teenager runs playfully in the light, and the day and sunlight peak before descending ever so quickly into dusk. The second line of the second set states, ?But only so an hour,? which makes clear that yet again time is passing by and that a beginning will inevitably have an end.

The discursive blank-verse meditation "Birches" does not center on a continuously encountered and revealing nature scene; rather, it builds a mosaic of thoughts from fragments of memory and fantasy. Its vividness and genial, bittersweet speculation help make it one of Frost's most popular poems, and because its shifts of metaphor and tone invite varying interpretation it has also received much critical discussion, not always admiring. The poem moves back and forth between two visual perspectives: birch trees as bent by boys' playful swinging and by ice storms, the thematic interweaving being somewhat puzzling. The birches bent "across the lines of straighter darker trees" subtly introduce the theme of