Comparing Robert Frost's Work

‘Robert Frost’ was an American poet who is known for his realistic depiction of rural life. His work mostly captures the settings from rural life

Frost was honoured with four Pulitzer Prizes. Some of his major works are ‘Mending Wall’, ‘Home Burial’, ‘Out Out’, ‘The Death of the Hired Man’. One of such is ‘Birches’ and ‘The Road Not Taken’

The poems described below can be found here:

1)Birches

2)Road Not Taken

‘Birches’ is written by ‘Robert Frost’ which was published in His poetry collection named ‘The Atlantic’ in 1915. It was published as ‘A Group of Poems’ with ‘The Road Not Taken’ and ‘The Sound of Trees’. ‘Birches’ is about the adult’s desire to escape the realities of adulthood for a while through the fun of a playing child. The poem is not about “birches” rather it is a metaphor of stepping into the heaven.

“But I was going to say when Truth boke in”, in this line, the word “Truth” stands for all the problem which the poet is hiding. Through, this line the poet is expressing his feelings to face the real world. “stiffness” here is a metaphor to his father’s responsibilities. “Swinger of birches”, here the poet expresses his feeling about swinger who don’t know where to launch as no body taught them. Thus, connecting himself with “swinger” by saying that once he was also a swinger who made mistakes and telling others to learn from the mistakes just as he did.

Summer or winter, and could play alone

In the above line, poet has used antonyms such as “Summer” and “winter” to bring the poetic effect in the poem. “Could play alone” is associated with the young children who have courage to face the truth and is referred as “natural truth tellers” as young children don’t know how to hide their feelings or emotions and play by their own with the available toys.

Earth’s the right place for love:

In the above “Earth” is a reference to the nature. The poet is fed and tired with his life and don’t have desire to live but there is something pulling him down which is love of the nature.

‘The Road Not Taken’ by Robert Frost was published in 1916.The poem describes the dilemma of a person standing at a road with diversion. This diversion symbolizes real-life situations. He had to select either of the one path, took a long time to decide whether it’s good or not for him. The poet also examines, “What... If” I.e. the regret of not choosing another path in terms of wonder.

And both that morning equally lay.

The poet in the above line express that there are equal opportunity for everyone for everything and there is no discrimination of any cause for anyone. There is nobody to guide him and hence associate it with the real life where there is nobody to guide you and one must take decision by their own which can have a long-term consequence on one's life, it won’t change with time.

I took the one less travelled by,

And that has made all the differences.

Through this line, reader can notice that the poet is adventurous and doesn’t want to take the path which most of the others took. He “took the one less travelled”, which portrays his Individuality and Self Confidence that whatever path he will take, will be faced by him courageously.

Hence, Robert Frost both the poem I.e. ‘Birches’ and ‘The Road Not Taken’ have different themes. ‘Birches’ deal with the theme of “Imagination versus Reality”. In the poem, Frost used His imagination to surpass the limits of the real world. The poet used the metaphor of “swinger” to let the readers swing back and forth between reality and imagination. Whereas ‘The Road Not Taken’ deals with the theme of “Courage”, “Individuality”, “Adventure”,” Self Confidence”, etc. The poem revolves around a general problem that every individual faces in life I.e. making a choice on life. He explains that life gives us opportunities and one has to take a decision firmly with full consciousness and stick to it as one’s the decision is taken, we cannot undo it. The decision taken can go wrong but, the choice must be made.

Thus, Frost poem’s has great influence on the readers to be mindful of any choice or action made by the Individual.

-VISHWA PITHADIA