Robert Frost

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Summary:
This poem about a man who is traveling through the woods on a snowy evening. On the way he briefs
stop at the woods and admires it but in the end he remembers the responsibilities that he has and
continuous journey.
Theme:
A. Opposition
1) Animal satisfied by creature comfort vs human perceiving beauty
2) Duty vs the inclination to dream and contemplation
B. The many responsibilities that must attended to in life before one can enjoy the sleep of death
Modernist poetry:
A. Simple and direct but it contains symbols, hidden meaning, implications
B. Vague: It told from the speaker’s point of view such as his house but Frost used third-person
narrative, and switch to the first-person narrative. Maybe he is not recognize himself as a protagonist.
C. Pessimistic tone: used the word choice to express: dark, deep
Techniques: Established idea and challenge traditions
A. Imagery
1) A lone man stopping by the woods on a snowy evening
2) The man rather than being frightened that he is in this environment which is pretty much at
peace and it’s enticed by the woods
3) Evidence: He voluntarily stopped to watch the wood fill up with the snow. Alongside the man,
the reader will feel that the scene is dark yet enticing due to the contrast to the dark imagery.
4) ** Frost used Repetition (2) and Other (3) to lead the readers to Imagery of the dark woods
B. Repetition
1) The word wood = fully submerge readers into this kind of atmosphere
2) Repetition of dark imagery such as “darkest evening…”
3) (a+b.) Portray the dark mysterious atmosphere
C. Other
1) An iambic meaning that each word is unstressed followed by stress such as “Whose wood these
are…” This adds to the uniformity of the poem as a whole.
2) Frost adds description such as “lovely easy wind and downy flake”, the contrast emphasizes the
peaceful enticing quality of the woods and adds lightness to the poem. It also explains why the
narrator is captivated by the wood
3) Alliteration S sound: used in the description of sounds of sweep, giving the feeling of a hushed
whisper. The man is alone but there is other movement.
4) Alliteration D sound: “dark and deep”, emphasizes the mysterious dark and imagery of the
woods. D sound is much heavier and the reflects the adjective dark and deep.