Subjective Characteristics of Robert Frost's Poems


Abstract:

Robert Frost- As a poet  
          
 Robert Frost is one of  the  greatest  American  poets . Robert Frost's poetry was a "source of inspiration to no less a person than Jawaharlal Nehru, the ideal of the people. After his death, there could be found a piece of paper containing four lines. The lines from Robert Frost's poem” stopping by woods on a snowy evening” : "The woods are lovely dark deep But I have promises' to keep, And miles to go before I sleep And miles to go before I sleep.”   There lines have been written as an inspiration to one of the greatest men of India.. It reminds of him and his service of humanity and people to whom he had dedicated himself. It shows Robert frost is a poet of human nature, humanity human characteristics. Here one question arises: 

   Why does Robert Frost write about nature?    
       
 Robert Frost writes about nature as a way of communicating more abstract ideas and psychological concepts. He takes something from nature and makes it similar to something which people feel or think. He does not really write about nature but he writes about people.  Frost's use of Nature is the most misunderstood element of his poetry. He said over and over," I am not a nature poet. There is always almost a person in my Poems".  L.F. Lynen:  Forst’s poetry is free from conventional and artificial elements". He has always been keen in capturing the simplicity and naturalness. One must  work  and,  one must perform one's duty. One must keep one's promises. Real happiness can be found there. He does not write about a superior plan.  He doesn’t write about person who is above and beyond all but as one who shares the life of the music and  real picture of  life. It shows his way of   looking at things. His rustic sensibility enables him not only to portray rustic life as it really itself but also contrasts it with urban life or beyond it, the complexity of city life.

Key Words: Human Nature, Symbolism, Realism, Contradiction, Patriotism, Hostility, Morality, Complexity 
                    and Truth, Mystery. 

  His poem 'Mending Wall'. It's a dramatic monologue. The speaker is a young man, the poet himself. The lyric is an expression of his views and attitudes. The other character is poet's neighbor, an old farmer. He does not speak of anything but we come to know about his attitudes and conservation or orthodoxy. The neighbor   seems to have faith in "Good Fences make good neighbors". The speaker is of the opposite opinion. As he says, "There where it is we do not need the wall: He is all pine and I am apple orchard". The neighbor's adherence to his Father's saying suggests the narrowness and ignorance that there is a vast difference between both  and  their  working.  The speaker says  he is pine and another is apple orchard. There is no need of wall. This concept shows rustic life, conservative nature through modern nature of speaker and narrow nature of neighbor. They are different from each other.                                    Complexity between two points of views:           
 Mending wall indicates a clash between two points of view. It is a conflict. It makes us think of them and which of these two is right (1) Should man remove, or  tear down the barriers which isolate individuals from one another?  (2) Should distinctions and limits be necessary for human life?  It's complexity of meaning and Freud does not provide   any answer.His purpose:  Frost's purpose is not to convey a message or give lesion of human nature or relations. The poem offers attitude of speaker, Thoughts create conflict and complexity of meaning. Frost wants his readers to explore different and paradoxical issues. It depicts an incident from rural life. The poem “Mending wall”   becomes a  proof of Frost's nature which includes complexity of conveying meaning and contracts between rural and city life. It indicates rural nature man, its complexity through the conflict of two. opposed points of view. It  indicates  Frost's universal look  towards the world and it  maintains  unnecessary thing and burden which is not worth at all or to attempt to tear it down." It's question of a defiance or nature's attempt to tear down it.            It too gives a view of "natural nature" or human nature. When there is a kind of unnecessary or the things which are not worth happening or worth keeping, they ought to be removed, proved out. Nature, environment is too like this. It removes boundaries between the two things. It destroys if there should not be any boundary.                                          Logic in contradiction :This contradiction is logical opposite statements are uttered by two different types of people and both are right from their own points of view. Man cannot live without walls, boundaries, limits and self limitation. "THERE SHOULD BE SOME LIMITATIONS". But the speaker is happy at the downfall of any barrier. Boundary line is useless. "There where it is we do not need the wall. He is all pine and I am apple orchard. My apple trees will never get across. and eat the cones under his pines I tell him."

                                                  Symbolism :In mending wall, The wall has been taken to symbolize all kinds of man-made barriers. The wall suggests divisions between nations, classes, economic, costs, racism and two different things that are different from each other. It can be symbolized as the clash of two forces. one is the spirit of revolt and the second is restraint. One challenges tradition and the second insists that conventions must be built up or rebuilt as matter of principle. [Lynen]
                                           Complexity of Truth :One makes us surrender to the natural forces which draw human beings together and separates them. One is young, progressive and other 15 old, conservative style of Frost's poem is colloquial and dramatic.
                                      Nature : Local and Regional :Forest is a great lover of nature, He loves it. Region that lies to the north of Boston, it forms the background of his poetry. Hills, dales, rivers, forests, trees, flowers plants animals, insects, birds, seasonal changes of this particular region. Which have been described in one poem after another. It depicts his characteristic of accuracy and minuteness. Poems of frost have been written at different periods of his life. It involves his minuteness of observation of natural objects.  In  “Stopping  by  woods on snowy evening”  it is proved.. The woods are so lovely, dark and deep  but the speaker has promises to keep and miles to go before he sleeps. It has been written so minutely  with an inspiration to one of the greatest men of India. It reminds of his service of humanity. At first extent it seems.
                            Natural world with human beings :He thinks deeply, grazes into soft, silent, whiteness, He is tempted, prevented from going, to stay there. It allows his mind to lose itself there in the charming woods. His consciousness seems to be freeing itself from his common, ordinary life. But he remembers his journey has a purpose. The time is not to release from worriers which the woods seem to be offering woods are natural objects which also indicate something. It is frost's nature characteristic which bring in minuteness of natural which brings in minuteness of natural object. It is a conflict between the demands of practical life, and escape from the place into a land. Where consciousness is deemed and senses are made free rather independent of necessity. It shows simple realistic way. The poet will have to fulfill certain duties before he go to sleep. 'promises', 'sleep',  ' show important aspects of his life, every men's life. sleep can be symbolized as end of day's work. but if we go beyond this meaning, it is the idea of the final sleep death itself. The idea of final death stands in contrast to snowy woods. Final death is an indication, suggestive of genuine ending, That man has kept whole journey through human experience but snowy woods attracts the speaker to hold on for a while to keep his consciousness away from some time when the speaker to be conscious and awake that he has to keep promises, and a lot to be done but woods temptation is to irresponsible indulgence is to an irresponsible indulgence ending in the loss of consciousness.As a lyric poet frost's symbolism is  important and he describes his minute observation. It is natural symbolism.  "Sleep" and  "darkness" suggest death and the woods suggest dangerous  enchantment. It attracts us but  does not provide us with "completeness" of life. The woods, poet enjoys looking upon are against those  promises he must keep. They lead poet to a kind of responsibility. Poet will only allow himself to sleep when duties are done. Sleep becomes a deserved reward of fulfillment of all duty performance in contrast to pleasure of looking at the woods. It is  “human  music “  that  goes on  with  woods .   It is music of typical human situation. It is an  insistent  wisper of death at heart of life. Man is lures us away to nature, Friendly - known voices call us back and reminds you of your remaining duties/things which are to be completed. It reminds you of your belongingness.                                             Mystery of  Nature :The woods are awesome but there is something mysterious about confusing - like nature of woods and forests. Just due to nature and its beauty, the speaker flirts with the idea of braking promises. The feeling of being far away from where we need to be is common and we have that knowledge too. It is nature that reminds you of it.
                                             Too much symbolism :Conflict is between an attraction towards woods and remembrance of responsibility outside of the woods. Woods are symbolized for wilderness, irresponsibility, But woods are someone's woods in particular - the owner lives in the village. Woods are not wild. Woods lie between the village - right side. "Society", "Duty", "Responsibility". Woods can be symbolized as seductive, lovely, attractive, dark, deep, beautiful. Snow falls can be symbolized as a  loss  of one's path.  It allows to   give up.It also can be seen as the temptation and watch beauty while responsibilities are forgotten. Woods   are bare because of winter and give sad message woods become symbol of life. The horsebell brings the speaker back into reality. He has to decide between temptation or responsibility. Human beings have ups and downs in their lives and many are tempted to end their lives to give up goals, or duties when they see pleasures outside of their extent and get attracted towards them but then realization comes like responsibilities of certain things. The speaker does not let himself lead towards temptation. He gets back to his duties, though the beauty of Nature.
                                             Frost's Realism :W.H. Auden says, Frost does not idealize or romanticize nature. He gives truth about her. His objects like woods. Mending wall are concerned with realism. The way people behave in the day to day life. It is a process of gaining livelihood. He is not like Wordsworth,  who has had a vision in youth, who had  spent  the rest of his life in interpretations.  He is  aware  of life. Man causes destruction through  blood,  war but he is capable of heroism. Nature is disordered, re-established with the help of human deeds. humans’  efforts can turn nature into a paradise.Frost writes about natural personal experience of those activities which he himself has observed in nature. Woods are dark but their beauty cannot detain the poet for long as he has promises to keep. Sweetest dream will not come unless labor, true performance for the sake of duty is not given". Fact, reality, is never absent from Frost's Nature poetry. He is not concerned with nature as such but he is concerned with common human activities that go on   in her lap.
                      Style of writing  :  (1)  Natural, (2) Practical (3)  OrdinaryIn Frost's poem we can find neutrality practicality and abnormality two. In "Home Burial" naturality is proved though the character of the mother whose burden of grief over the death other hand, his husband seems to be very practical who wants his wife to get rid of that grief. The reason is only the shadow of her child who is dead now and it brings both of them; husband and wife in complicit. It is dramatic dialogue which shows Frost's style of naturality. The couple is caught in spiritual crises.Grief stricken mother cannot forget that her husband himself dug the grave of their own child in their little graveyard and himself buried him there. So here from a mother's perspective it seems impossible and makes us question, how can  a father buried his own child in his own little graveyard. She considers her husband's attitude as his insensitive nature, callousness indifferent and brutal. Frosts has shows many characteristics of an individual and gives a natural universal picture. This thinking makes her alienated from her husband and leads her to mental break-down. He is a simple man but confused by excessiveness of her sorrow."I do think, though, you over do it a little what, was it brought you up to think it"Husband wants his wife to consider him capable enough to console her. There is no contact, communication remaining between them. His attitude is practical. For him life can not complete itself but it goes on in spite of grief. Grief overwhelms the sense of life. Grief can be submerged beneath the everyday existence of life. She is horrified at her husband's practical attitude or behavior. When she threatens to leave him and he shouts he will not let her go, and it is not real resolution of their relationship. In actuality, wife lacks. The courage to run away but she can't. She want to get away from situation but her naturality, woman universal characteristic does not allow her to get away. Husband lacks that words, understanding to convince his wife and lacks perceptiveness. They are trapped by their own limitations. They are right from their own perspective. We can't consider any one of them wrong.The poem lies in the psychological change in nature of the emotionally excited wife. She is made to talk express her grief helps her understand its reality. She imagines that she must give over. her life to her sorrow for the child's death. She seems to have accepted this death with his callousness. She does not seem to be understanding her husband's practical approach the life that how he could have burred their child himself. She is horrified. She thinks that he should we come into the kitchen with his boots muddy from the earth of the grave. She has cut herself off from him.  There is exchange of harsh words and the feeling of hatred between them. As her husband forces her to talk of the things and express her grief. It results from the pain that she discerns, explorer of human nature and it is too limited and it cannot sacrifice everything to sorrow. She seems to be telling by her attitude that she will not compromise with her grief by returning to normal life and she herself might be seeing or feeling the absurdity and over reaction of her attitude. Her husband's continuous trying and effort that have been added by him indicate that his love, kindness, generosity reasonableness brings her to life back and helps him get rid of the excess of grief.The poem shows Frost's excellence and his style of writing that has been   proved through this poem.
                                               Reginald Cook :The person also agrees and according to him this poem is a great drama of "Social adjustment in human relationship" It explores human relationship. The bond between husband and wife is the basic human relationship. This poem shows how with circumstance, relationship reaches to breaking point and adjustment has to be arrived through self expression.
                     Confusions and conflicts in human relationship :                    Human relations are very complicated to understand.Wife :   you - oh, you think the talk is all. I must go somewhere out of this house. How can I make you -Husband : Where do you mean to go ? I'll follow and bring you back by force. I will - 'The wife cannot really leave, the husband cannot maker her stay. They must continue to live together in spite of everything and adjustment must be brought. Adjustment is possible through self expression.
                                          Complexity with meaning :Frost's little details take us to unusual meaning. The sight of graveyard. "So small the window frames the whole of it."  Stains of mud on the man's shoes have  significance to the woman and  it is horrifying because it is matter of fact." Mother's grief gives universal of two windens into a study of husband - wife or man and woman of life and death relationship.Universal Issues :  “A man must partly give up being man with women-folk. We could have made arrangements. By which I'd bind myself to keep hands off anything special you are mind to name. Through I don't like such things' twist those that love. Two that don't love can't live together without them”.
                                                Amy Stop Lowell :Any Lowell says that the language used by husband is simple and straight forward.                                               Annotations :"So small the windows frame the whole of at."The entire graveyard could be seen brought the window. The graveyard is small, not larger than a bedroom".He said twice over - he repeated to himself twice before expressed in words.Let me into your grief - let me share in your grief.Mother -loss of a first child - the way a mother takes the idea her first born child.Self-expression brings people close r  to their soul and it also brings relief. In Frost's view communication between people remark misunderstanding and brings them together."She was opening the door “ wider  Closed.”.  This symbolizes that the wife can't leave and husband can't make her convinced of his own views. They must do a kind of adjustments marriage is a continuing relationship and home must not be given up.Frost writes in sense of emotional and practical. Two tragedies are there : The death of a child and the collapse of a marriage. It is about human grief but it seems to be about the limits of communication and breakdown. The wife remarks that most people make only pretense that most people make only pretense of following loved one to the grave, but in truth they are not sad and they make the best way back to life. She is different. She will not turn from the grave back to the living world. It is "the world's evil". She declares on the other hand husband grieved. Time has passed, he had to move on. The outer indications of his grief were different from his wife. This shows universality that woman so innocent. Sometimes overreacts at the time of 'move on' and man is capable enough to.It shows universal notional. The woman misunderstands the man's action. To her, the act of burying the child was indifference, while to him, it must have been one kind of suffering an attempt to convince him  through physical labor.She takes one step down the stairs, but it's a doubtful one. She is not sure-that she should have taken it. Personification is here normally, people are doubtful.Wife is in her place. She refuses her husband's help. If the husband is going to figure out what she is looking at, she won't help him. She lets him look where she had been gazing, and she herself is confident that he would not be able to see what she saw. The husband [The man] is called a "blind creature". The word blind refers to the man's perception, not his eyesight. The man is capable of seeing what to woman is afraid of. But she does not think much of his mental abilities.
                                      Opposites and Juxtaposition :"Fire and Ice" provides best notions of Frost's metaphysical state of bringing two opposite concepts together. In this lyric, two opposite ideas, have not only been juxtaposed but they have also been reconciled. Both are good for destruction. Fire symbolizes the intensity of passion or desire and Ice symbolizes the cold of hatred. It is a short lyric of nine lines in which the poet succeeds in showing concepts and opens vistas to the mind's eye. Lynen says, by linking of desire to fire and hate to Ice, human emotions are transformed into impersonal forces. The poem is extremely rich., One can find confusions and complexity of meaning in the paradoxes. For example.:  The intensity of man's passions which makes him human, creates inhumanity with intensity. Fire and Ice is a masterpiece of condensation. It's a prediction or speculation about the end of the world and the beginning of wisdom. It is an epigram, about speculation about world's ending and wisdom's beginning. The speaker speaks of  the age old question of whether the world's ending and wisdom's beginning.  It is connected to another old age question.: Whether it would be preferable to freeze the death or burn to death. The truth remains ambiguous and the whether it is more likely to be destroyed by fire or ice. The narrator considers his own experience with desire and passion. and   emotion of fire. Ice would be equally destructive. It shows a clear dechotomy between fire and ice two groups of people. Instead of using 'I' or 'an individual', frost has used "some".These two possibilities for the world's destruction correspond directly to a common scientific debate during the time Frost wrote the poem. Scientists were discussing this matter too. Instead of maintaining this scientific perspective, Frost introduces emotional side - associating desire with fire and hatred with Ice. Too much fire and passion for desire consume / destroy the relationship. While cold indifference, hate can be equally destructive. The speaker is speaking of things in human nature, arouse terror but he will not surrender to emotional outbursts. The speaker does not speak of his personal emotions, yet the consciousness of experience seems to be felt. The emotion is felt but its expression is controlled or restrained. Theme is destruction of human passions (love and hatred) internal end of the world. through the power of love or hate destroys  human beings and they destroy one another.Fire stands for intensity, passion desire and the speaker seems to have experienced it with romantic desire and it has taught him passionate intensity of love, emotions like just, love. It has the power to turn the earth into a big Fireball. Fire stands for "hot emotions". But the speaker seems to have experienced other extreme power and he knows that colder emotions like hate and it has destructive power too. Love gets all the publicity but hate is the silent killer. If we having  fight with one of our friends and get angry that we beat him so hard that is fire. But if we feel disregard for one of our enemies and make plan for their downfall that is ice. 'Fire' and 'Ice' are little words but they have a huge meaning. It is like choice whether Fire or Ice. Which fore will bring the end of this world ?  Love is connected with desire. It has many sides like affection commitments.



                                                    Patriotism  :The gift Outright is a patriotic poem. It is a history of the United States in sixteen lines. The love of country is not expressed in hysterical flag - waving but in salvation of faith, in surrender to the land.Such as she was, such as she would become.The poem tells about the history of American people and  their struggle against foreign domination or their identification with country through self surrender. It has been a source of inspiration to all patriotic Americans. It was published in A witness Tree in 1942.The lyric begins with an account of the coming of the British colonists in America. For more than a hundred years. They occupied the land as colonials and called it their colony. They still considered England as their motherland. They did not have true genuine patriotic feeling For the land. They did not feel they belonged to her. They did not feel that they were her sons, inhabitants but they had a sense of possession. They lacked that true sense of belongingness. Possessing what we were still unpossessed by and possessed by what we now no more possessed.The feeling of patriotism is expressed through these lines. Colonizers blame that the land theirs, colony theirs but that true love and that feeling of patriotism did not possess that soul. They lack real love and affection. This made them weak and ineffective.The narrator describes America's history as a nation from the time of the European colonists. The colonists could not create a national identity from it because they were still tied to England.They were denying their beliefs in freedom by embracing the lessons of the land. were able to establish an American identity. In order to accept this gift of identity, the people had to commit many acts, of war and mark the land as their own, but the end result was truly American land. "The Gift outright" received special attention when Frost recited it at the inauguration of president John F Kennedy, January 20, 1961 Their love, surrender to the noble capable of great achievement. This was their gift outright that enriched their lives with courage, devotion, determination. They could achieve the war of independence. It was the love of their motherland, which  help them discover country in her virgin simplicity and glory. They are inhabitants of a virgin land, which is artless, unstoried,  and   unenhanced. But they love it as she is, they would continue to love it. In future, also they would love when she grows over her in course of time, will not affect their love. The colonists in America struggled to be one with the land because of their ties to England. As years passed, they were able to establish their identities As Americans because their efforts to build a land, was not based on traditions of Europe.Frost repeats the term "ours" many a times in the text but forces that the 'we' of the poem is the white settlers from Europe, rather than the original 'owners' of the land; the Native Americans.Frost prefers to ignore the conflict between the old world and the new world or the European world of tradition and oppression and the new American world of identity or   freedom.It shows the development of American culture from colonial times to more present perspective. It is about American story of colonialism, Freedom and expansion. American supported growth development of country and culture as well.The identity of America, which is main thing in the poem is very different from the contemporary understanding of the American identity as an amalgamation of different culture.The First line of  'The Gift Outright' reads the land was ours before we were the lands. There Frost shows the idea, of apparent, visible manifest destiny. The American land was ordained by God for the American people. Fate endowed the land with its outright citizens.
                                            Nature's Hostility  :Philosophy of nature that Frost gave is different from  that of thing or does something good for mankind. Nature is indifferent. He finds sinister and hostile something that lurks into the apparent calm beauty of nature. Nature is alien. Man struggles for survival. Nature's bleakness emphasizes   human loneliness.