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Robert Frost Themes North of Boston (1915 - London): Mending wall,…

- - - - Language 2
        Nature impact on the speaker is portrayed by the Transcendence of his inner emotions and deeper ideas through the present, physical aspects of his setting.
        "The woods" and "village" limn the seam between nature and civilisation, where the border between them blurs.
        Concrete nouns highlight physical presence and natural imagery, homely, grounded atmosphere. Rural.
        "woods" "house" "village" "farmhouse"
        while abstract is employed to hint about future.
        "promises" "year" "evening"
        
        Transition of the conflict now, trespassing, which is more real to him, to abstract shows greater metaphysical problems of duty and conflicts etc, inspires the reader to reflect on their own internal conflicts. The deeper he goes in the "dark" woods mimicked by each stanza, the more he has an insight into his mental state. Effect of nature makes him question his inner self.
        
        LINk TO AFTER APPLE PICKING. expression of uncertainty about his future as a poet.
      - Structure
        Uses structure and sound to convey the speakers gradual descent into his mental insight and a sort of trance.
        
        This lyrical poem is made up of four stanzas of four lines each.
        The poem contains the rhyming scheme of AABA CCDC EEFE GGGG.
        
        syntax There is deviation in the structure of the first sentence as it does not follow the normal pattern of subject and verb. "Whose woods" is foregrounded, immediately immersed into setting of woods, assonance highlighted, and into the speakers thoughts, first person. Stream of consciousness poem
        
        The rhyme of every next stanza follows the rhyme of the third line of the previous one. This acts as a sort of binding force between stanzas As the poem progresses through each stanza, the rhymes match the tone, with the beginning description of the woods being expressed through woozy, calm, gliding assonance of 'o' in "whose woods". The rhymes of "i know", "though" and "snow" are a continuation of this assonance and the effect it produces. However, in the next stanza, a slightly harsher rhyme or "-eer" sounds contrasts the delicateness of the previous one and this is repeated by "-ake" and finally "keep" rhymes. It is as if the further the speaker goes in to the "deep" woods , the more it has an effect on him, luring him in away from the real world of responsibilities and labour.
        
        repetition of last lines, breaks rhyme scheme. ironically with "but i have promises to keep"
        "and miles to go before i sleep"
        
        adds kind of musical quality, refrain like
        
        perhaps reiterated determination or failure to progress.
        
        After apple picking
        
        Similar in the way it portrays the powerful effect of nature as it leads the speaker into a mental trance, of "Long sleep" away from his actual labour, or perhaps as a result of an excess of it due to some perfectionism etc. , highlighting the darker mentality of man due to the difficulties of rural labour.
        
        MESSAGE: make them question the truth about all "duty" and "labour" which they are bound to in life. Perhaps a comment on Frosts behalf of the overworking and lack of attention to mental state
        
        Link to Frosts own experience - his attempt to ascend to loftier poetic heights "toward heaven still" i.e. perfectionism or the rewards of labour, like the speaker here wants to succeed in labour, with his "ladder's sticking through a tree" which, with its violent and destructive connotations, perhaps emphasises the damaging toll of such a pursuit on the speaker. Effects of it spoken about later. Frost draws probably from his own rural life working on a farm to parallel his less relatable feelings about writing poetry, Uses the contraction of "ladder's" to heighten the colloquial effect.
        
        Composed in 1913 after his first book of poetry (a Boys will) was published after years of struggle and gaining little favourable notice. May be something you love to do but find extremely exhausting due to the loving effort it requires
        
        ALL THE APPLES THAT struck the earth went surely to the apple-cider heap"
        
        link to garden of eden. after picking forbidden apple, mankind expelled into the world to endure hard labour + suffer, speaker in a world like this, questions the use of it and is very world weary + apathetic to labour after such difficult hard work. Earth corrupts the apples, removes them from the purity of "heaven"
        
        Structure
        
        Metric irregularities, wandering structure, occasionally deviating from iambic pentameter to emphasise movement between wake and dream-like 'woozy' state, descent into mental state.
        
        use of ceasura, slow pace, speaker overtired from labour.
        
        "the scent of apples: I am drowning off"
        he has had too much "of apple picking: I am overtired"
        
        no stanza breaks, enjambment, Contrast to stopping by woods, more entranced and dream-like, Extremer version.
        
        "It melted, and i let it fall and break
        but i was well"
        upon my way to sleep before it fell"
        
        as poem progresses also variety in line length, uneasy consciousness, loss of control over situation (power of nature )
        
        Language 2
        "two or three" apples - lack of clarity.
        " Essence of winter sleep is on the night"
        "the scent of apples: I am drowning off"
        "I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight"
        
        sibilance, drowsy tone, reinforces that the fatigue is inescapable.
        
        was past tense, but then switches to present tense, confusion
        
        " i feel the ladder sway"
        "I have had too much"
        
        monosyllabic, alliteration emphasises dreariness, defeat
        
        **"of apple picking: I am overtired
        of the harvest i myself desired" **
        
        rhyming couplet + "ed" ending, past tense, final defeated attitude, link to human aspiration. There are roughly zones.
        
        Language 1
        "toward heaven still" "toward" a preposition.
        
        see context, however, religious reference also allusion to death, like stopping by woods, both have this idea of "sleep" at the end of the poem. Link to ideas about depression due to overworking and relief from the duty and labour of the world.
        
        "winter sleep"
        
        pathetic fallacy, winter follows harvest season, linked to speakers productivity and fading, just like the harvest is. "hibernation" could be some kind of creative paralysis, see context.
        
        "scent of apples" "magnified apples appear and disappear"
        
        sweet sickening smell is almost poison to him. Nature is putting him in this trance, link to stopping by woods, hallucinogenic effect.
        
        again fatigue creates distorted image or this "pane of glass". Reflects throbbing pain. Cacophony of sounds and smells.
        
        "looking through a pane of glass"
        
        denotes ice, connotes distorted view of speaker. Due to failure, hardship etc. he is viewing his rural work differently now. Crisis of identity.
        
        "ten thousand thousand" hyperbole, extent of difficulties and demands, perfectionist attitude.
      - Language 1
        The allegorical nature of this poem suggest a deeper metaphorical meaning for nature/ the woods; its reflection of the complexity of life and the darker mentality of man.
        Symbolism
        "lovely, dark and deep"
        
        seductive, tempting connotations, alliterative sound of 'd', harsher sounds, emphasises its effect on him.
        
        The woods stand for the complexity of human emotion and life. Can go further and deeper.
        The poem’s narrator is truly suspended between the draw of nature, on the one hand, and his connection to the human society in which he was raised, on the other, in which he is reminded of his duties.
        "Snow", "lake" and "sleep" for isolation, coldness and death, but almost in a pleasant way. He did, after all, use "woods" and not "Forest" .Watch the woods "fill up with snow", death wish, suffocation contrasted with purity. Dealing with suicide. The word sleep is employed with denotative and connotative meanings as one meaning is to rest but other indicates death.
        There is lots of contrast of language, creating a vivid scene the speaker wants to stay in. “sweep of ...downy flake,” is dynamic, in perpetual motion. As it falls, it creates a still carpet of immaculate white. The “frozen lake” is its direct opposite, immovable, passive.
        LINk TO APPLE PICKING, effect on him + making him want to "sleep"
        
        Adressed by frost as he himself broke down on the way back from the market in New Hampshire during a difficult winter. Was an unsuccessful trip as he Realised that he did not have enough to buy Christmas presents for his children. Frost was overwhelmed with depression and stopped his horse at a bend in the road in order to cry. After a few minutes, the horse shook the bells on its harness, and Frost was cheered enough to continue home.
        
        However,
        The exaggeration/hyperbole present in “the darkest evening of the year” and “The woods fill up with snow” perhaps portrays the speakers tainted negative view of his life and problems and potentially highlights the overreaction of people and their problems.
        SIMILARLY IN AFTER APPLE PICKING
        Winter solstice is the darkest evening of the year, Dec 22, time of death, dark night of the soul.
  - - - Language 2
        Natures power and influence is portrayed through its obscurity and incomprehensible nature.
        "Something there is that doesn't love a wall"
        
        The syntactical inversion
        applied here combined with the indefinite pronoun “something“ adds some vagueness and mystery to nature.
        
        perhaps the idea that is is some anthropomorphic force of nature denying any
        human attempt to impose limits on it. It almost seems to serve as a third figure in the poem -
        a kind of inner voice trying to gain a certain impact on the conflict, which is the actual plot of the poem.
- - - - Embodies both worlds as having a mixture of desirable and undesirable living conditions. His enforcement of having also undesirable living conditions, such as boundaries, in life is represented by the imposition of limits and boundaries on the birches and highlights Frost's message that the limits are inherent in defining a person and their place in the world.
        
        through the forces acting on the birch trees and the idea of the birches "bending" as having limits imposed on them
        
        Language 1
        Metaphor of birches "bending" under external forces to highlight the importance of the imposition of limits and boundaries in the real world in order to shape and define oneself.
        While the idea of the birches being so affected by the forces of nature could be interpreted as a negative thing "I like to think some boys been swinging on them" instead of the ice storm , "these don't bend them down to stay"...
        The birch trees are "dragged to the withered bracken by the load" "never right themselves". Conjures up a powerful image. Many harsh consonants, and negative consonants. verb "dragging" , "bracken" shrubs and ferns, untamed and wild.
        are only well
        defined by the imposing forces of nature, represented by ice storms.
        
        set them apart, make them unique from the "straighter darker trees" - Frost believed that the 'limits', here the imposing forces of nature are needed to give them individuality. They are "bent" and it is clear they have suffered under the effects of the real world, but they still stand. What else is ageing and becoming wise? It is suffering under the effects of the earth but staying strong and unique, and in the process becoming slightly alienated while still a part of the world.
        These forces, in fact, incarnate the conquest made and
        completed by the boy and the ice-storm that
        "bend them down in supplication"
        Frost believes, boundaries are inherent in identifying an entity and its relation to the natural world. It is key to individuality
        
        Juxtaposition with description of leaves in the morning when they shed "crystal shell" and turn "many- coloured".- lack of detail suggests individuality, don't know which colours, up to the eye of the beholder. Extraordinary beauty despite effects of boundaries and nature (sun and wind) which first "cracks and crazes enamel", and cause them to "click upon themselves", much more than before.
        
        The inevitability of limits, and the effects of breaking them. youth vs Adulthood
        The little boy represents youth, a superior way of living.
        When the speaker delves into fantasy, imagining that the little boy CAN bend the birches. We learn a harsh lesson. While the boy, like the speaker can escape from the limits imposed by the outside world and is able to play in any season, unrestricted by time, he ultimately as a result becomes alienated from society and people.
        "too far from town to learn baseball"
        "summer or winter"
        "for him to conquer" this idea of childhood escapism, naive to thing he has a chance against nature.
        
        wrote this poem about growing up in new England, while in old England, perhaps him missing his home idealised his child life.
      - Lang 1
        Juxtaposition of ideas, portrays despite fluctuations between real world and imaginary, a balance creates the most beautiful effect.
        
        "sunny winter morning after a rain"
        oxymoronic phrase, sunny could represent the imaginative aspect and the winter the reality, rain represents
        
        Juxtaposition with description of leaves in the morning when they shed "crystal shell" and turn "many- coloured" .- lack of detail suggests individuality, don't know which colours due to the effects of nature, up to the eye of the beholder, or up to imagination, which is only allowed due to effects of reality. Extraordinary beauty when viewed with some imagination.
        If not, "cracks and crazes enamel" , and cause them to "click upon themselves" .
        
        an opaque or semi-transparent glossy substance that is a type of glass. Supposed to be a protective coating, but nature cracks and crazes it, just like nature and real life sometimes cracks your protective coating.
        
        The fluctuations between these connotations, altering line by line, mimics the speaker delving into imagination then back again.
        
        negative consonance, harsh sounds portray the negative natural world and exemplify the desire towards imagination. Enhanced by the world of reality where the birches are loaded with ice.
        
        There is an evocative description of the gradual falling of snow after condensing on these leaves making piles. The resulting inspiring shapes of snow are metaphorically and positively correlated to 'broken glass' and 'the inner dome
        of heaven' . rather negative but real life connotation juxtaposed to imaginative idea. How the speaker wants to see it.
      - In extreme forms, redemptive imagination, or to escape from the cruelty of the real world, is self-defeating and can thrust you into deep isolation.
      - Lang 3
        
        first person, stream of consciousness poem
        unrhymed blank verse , no separation between ideas of reality and imagination
        
        conversational, familiar "then truth..."
        "you'd think"
        "you must have seen them"
        
        more realistic like a proper glimpse into his mind
      - Lang 2
        The idea of the natural world being inescapable, and the loss of childhood youth and imagination.
        The birches are so affected by the forces of nature and reality and this could be interpreted as a negative thing
        "I like to think some boys been swinging on them" instead of the ice storm , "these don't bend them down to stay"... imagination isn't sufficient in the real world
        The birch trees are "dragged to the withered bracken by the load" "never right themselves". Conjures up a powerful image. Many harsh consonants, and negative consonants. verb "dragging" against will, "bracken" shrubs and ferns, untamed and wild, but unique .
        The 'never right themselves" perhaps refers to the loss of this imagination and childhood in favour of the effects of nature, a comment on how these effects of nature age you and make you become wiser and after certain effects you cant really go back to your youth, and reality and duty is personified in this female character of "Truth" "with all her matter-of-fact". Quite dismissive, humorous, and we get the sense that the adult is sick of it and decides instead to draw memories from childhood, even though they are aware of it.
        On the other hand, imagination is much more freeing, but the trees don't bend down to say
        "these don't bend them down to stay"
  - - - Language 1
        Title - allusion to Macbeth "out, out, brief candle, life's but a walking shadow"
        
        The brief candle is the nameless, young boy who really wants to play and rest, yet he must finish his chores.
        
        commentary on the volatility and precariousness of life.
        
        The quote is cut off, like the hand is cut off, and like his life was cut off, just like that and he was ultimately consumed by death, and inevitably like us all. - link to ".so."cutting off.
        
        "life from spilling"
        
        double consonant sound (f-f), Ceasura , linger on moment, metaphor of blood as life, highlights extend of injury.
        
        "the hand was gone already" "watcher of his heart""and that ended it"
        
        hollow, impersonal, matter-of-fact tone demonstrates brutality and cold injustice of the moment.
        
        "nothing to build on there"
        
        in modern society, boy i sonly as good as his work. Nothing left to build on mirrors how he can no longer build anything, deemed useless.
        
        "they, since they were not the one dead"
        
        repetition, and position at end of poem leaves a sense of ambiguity. plural pronoun in place of a more specific name of set of same leaves us to question who these people are. Us? Society? doesnt pinpoint who is affected, but all those affected
        
        "in the dark of ether"
        
        ether, painkillers
        
        alludes to death, foreshadows
        
        "call it a day, I wish they might have said" "saved from work" "sister" in "apron"
        
        a sense of regret, building up sympathy for this boy and with colloquial language...
        
        highlighting his youthfulness and reluctance to work and inability to enjoy it. Forced to work from a young age/
        
        Just like in many of Frosts poem, we are taught about the hardships of pastoral life and the great burden about which they must understand, and must learn to stand with on their own.
      - Language 2
        The description of the buzzsaw highlights the
        
        "the buzz-saw snarled and rattled" "breeze"
        
        assonance, sibilance (z,s), onomatopeia - reflect sound of saw, main focus of the poem (boy only mentioned line 11)
        
        repetition 3 times in the poem, reflects the repeated and relentless work of the buss-saw
        
        animalistic, snakelike, wild mechanical thing, metaphor of a snake, perhaps negatively portraying machinery and industrialisation. "made dust" seems to be the purpose, clouding the vision. 'bears a load' personified to show it represents the entirety of industrial work and human labour.
        
        blur between machine having human qualities or not and the people almost being machines, working so hard they don't "lift eyes to see the beauty of the pastoral nature.
        
        Frost perhaps implying humans are becoming machines. When we use tools do we perhaps become instruments our selves. They are not portrayed as enemies, but almost interwoven. Accident is a "meeting which neither refused", both doing same job "beside them", worn down by hard work, and trying to prove something. Lots of parallels between them.
        
        "those that lifted eyes"
        
        Humans are not aware of surroundings when they work, only focus on the action and no longer appreciate the beauty of it and the surroundings.
        
        Contrasts the boys innocence and the strict older generation, force him to work long hours and dont care if he does
        "big boy" "child at heart"
        
        Familiar words of affection used to describe him.
      - Structure
        
        blank verse
        
        4 lines given to event. draws out the horror and intensity of the moment
        
        bits of dialogue to express the intensity of the moment and make it even more shocking and present for a reader. "So" directly after dialogue. Cuts of the speech and the contrast in length varies the cutting off of the hand. Again shows the rapidity of the moment and the shocking nature of it.
        
        two lines with Half-length sentences after the event. Fragmented, like the boys heart beat. Mirror boys heart beat dwindling away and makes his death sudden, and how quickly the people get over it, contrast to the dragged out moment of the saw hitting his hand. Focus on the saw and its effects.