... because he could (11-12). Frost uses the word "white" for the last time to describe the moth, which creates imagery of going pale in death. This imagery is also reflected in line 13: "What but design of darkness to appall?" The definition of "appall" is to turn ... white with fear, and death and fear are typically associated with darkness. Frost is uncertain about the existence of this god who creates darkness and fear ... at the end of the poem: "If design govern in a thing so small" (14). This is where the title ... there any god? Robert Frost does not know, but he leaves it to the r...

• Word Count: 1234
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... that nature is still shining through the disruption. But the darkness of the road shows that nature has been engulfed by civilization. The point of view is also different, the drama is received differently. For Frost's poem death of nature is seen through the eyes of a spectator. But while in Stafford's poem, death is almost seen in the eye of the beholder. Stafford's poem man making ... his decision for everyone "I thought hard for us all"(17) to either finish off nature or redo our mistakes. The two ... poems both support the idea that nature is dieing because of technology. Civiliza...

• Word Count: 676
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... horse". The solemn atmosphere is awakened by the "shake" of the bells as a signal to move on. A sign that stopping "between the woods and frozen lake" serve no useful purposes. In "Because I Could Not Stopped for Death", Dickinson describes to readers the amazement of life's cycle. She accomplishes this by choosing a series of symbols that symbolises cycle of life which are ... , of imaginative value. According to Leonard Unger, this symbolism enforced by the word "but" in the last stanza. "But I have promises to keep," If it was not for the "promises", the speaker might have entered the...

• Word Count: 1463
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... the tone and theme of his sonnet. "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" has a lyrical tone. The sonnet could be appropriate for singing because of its melodic flow and theme. The mood is set to express Shakespeare's feelings toward his lover. Shakespeare creates a feeling of love ... These images of sadness and solitude create a mellow mood. The title itself, "Acquainted with the Night," suggests that the speaker's mood is calmed by the darkness as he walks to the "farthest city light"(line 3). The night is his cover and a type of disguise as he walks "by the watchman on ... will neve...

• Word Count: 1091
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... reader's attention on the color white shows that Frost is manipulating the images to convey a feeling of innocence, purity, and goodness. The other mood in poem is that of evil or foreboding. Frost uses phrases such as "death and blight," mixed like a "witch's broth" and includes "dead wings" to contrast with the imagery of white pure innocence and goodness. Additionally, the poem ... is literally a story about death. The extreme contrast between moods in this poem is made clearer upon analysis of the type of sonnet Frost is using. The 14 lines in this sonnet are divided into an octave ...

• Word Count: 1151
• Approx Pages: 5

... , and deep". Setting is an important literary device that Frost uses in this poem. Something caught the speaker's eye in the woods making them a special place for the person in the poem (Pritchard 70-72) The person in the poem has associated the woods with a thought of his own place of paradise. The peacefulness, darkness, and silence are all important to the speaker paradise. The snow ... sounds of "the sweep of the easy wind and downy flake". The word sweep describes the wind (Pritchard 80-85). Many people have associated the meaning of the poem with death, because of the poems rhythm....

• Word Count: 1464
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... neighbor will not go behind his father's saying an tradition that, " good fences make good neighbors." The speaker believes that he and his father are almost the same, " he moves in darkness as it seems to him." The poem shows one mans desire to be friends with another man with a heart of stone. Frost made many poetic works throughout his life. Some ... of his more popular poems are as followed, " Mending Wall", "The Death of a hired man", and "After Apple Picking." In "Mending Wall" Frost uses free verse. For example instead of using a special rhyme scheme, he tells as if it were a sto...

• Word Count: 424
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... night, "at ten o'clock of a winter eve," when everything else in the town is at rest and still. The street is empty except for one last wanderer still traversing down a lonely lane. Frost deals with recurring themes of darkness, loneliness, death, and uncertainty. Through these themes, Frost reveals himself in candid form. He was a natural born worrier who often got nervous stomachaches ... . These occurrences became so frequent that eventually they drove him to quit school for several years. He had ... fears of abandonment in his childhood, which lead to feelings of isolation ... ...

• Word Count: 2341
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: High School

... of fear is repeated throughout the entire collection of poems, and it largely contributes to the theme of the entire work. In the poem "The Fear" the use of light and darkness convey the unknown and fear people have for each other. In the dark, the woman can't see much but she has a distorted view of a man whom she automatically fears. This obscured view ... he sees, realizing that he'd "never noticed it from [there] before." (pg. 43 l. 22) His position behind the barrier disabled him from realizing the problem. They dig the problem of death underground just as the husband dug the grave...

• Word Count: 2189
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: High School

... Picking", we must remember that Robert Frost is a landscape poet. His poetry is always enriched with the depiction of agrarian and natural scenes. In "After Apple Picking", he presents a simple theme that how peacefully an overtired villager is lulled to sleep by "the essence of winter sleep ... Since the poet has left the ending of the poem open; therefore, the sleep of the peasant could either be related to death or to intoxication since the apple picker is "drowsing" under appeasing influence of mighty nature. The "magnified apples" may also be ... life is uncertain. Life is rather to...

• Word Count: 647
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... several insects. Each character (insect) symbolizes something. I found a dimpled spider, fat and white, On a white heal-all, holding up a moth Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth-- Assorted characters of death and blight Mixed ready to begin the morning right, Like the ingredients of a witches' broth-- A snow-drop spider, a flower like froth, And dead wings carried like a paper kite. What had ... do with being white? The wayside blue and innocent heal-all? What brought the kindred spider to that height? Then steered the white moth thither in the night? What but design of darkness to...

• Word Count: 641
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... reinforces the tone of isolation and loneliness. The feeling of his flight from, and search for release from his pain is shown by his constant action, I have walked, I have looked, and I have passed. The oppressive imagery of the darkness and the rain mirrors the dark feelings of gloom and misery suffered by him, but ... it is also for him a darkness of comfort and concealment. We have all experienced the misery and sometimes fear of being out at night in the rain on empty streets, wishing for light, shelter and safety, and so we can both pity and empathise with ... work every morning o...

• Word Count: 1694
• Approx Pages: 7
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... speaker says, "He will not see me stopping here. To watch his woods fill up with snow." We find out that the traveler has stopped his trip for a moment, just to watch the snowfall. We also assume he is alone. We want to know: why is he stopping? Doesn't he have better things ... the day is the shortest, the nights are the longest, with the most hours of darkness. However, a "dark" time may have another meaning, because we refer to times of trouble as being "dark". If this is a "dark" night for the speaker, it may mean that he is facing some unknown problems. The third stanza ... and l...

• Word Count: 793
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... Frost children died at a young age. This adds death and darkness to his poetry. In the poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" the quotes "The woods are lovely, dark, and deep" add to the darkness of the poem. The woods are a metaphor for death and in the poem his calls death "lovely."In "Fire and Ice" Frost talks about the ... destruction of the world and the death that is inevitable to all humans. "Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice." The themes of darkness, death and New England are seen ... throughout Robert Frost's poetry. The poem "The Road Not Taken" is the...

• Word Count: 1771
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

... ). The narrator does not reap the benefits of Adam's knowledge and believes his job has little significance in the grand scheme of life, he does not feel important thus creating his desire for death. In the poem the narrator regards the fallen apples as "of no worth" however sympathy seems ... to be shown when he states that they do possess some worth in the "cider-apple heap" (Frost 35). With ... life force is apparent in the poem, there is a darkness that looms as the narrator talks about winter. When discussing winter, the reader gets a feeling of darkness and the craving of an eterna...

• Word Count: 1253
• Approx Pages: 5

... is somehow associated with insomnia, loneliness, isolation, coldness, darkness, death, fear, and a sense of alienation from humanity...Daylight -- ordinary daytime thoughts and life itself -- seems remote and unavailable in this poem." (140) Even though according to the philosophy of Yin and Yang this darkness is supposed to bring balance to an individual's being, ... and cant even begin to try and rationalize them. Frost leaves a bit of mystery here as to what his speaker is unwilling to explain for us to figure out, leaving it to our imaginations of what plagues the speaker. The lonelin...

• Word Count: 2303
• Approx Pages: 9
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... so the reader can think that the person may have lived the experience, and is thus more knowledgeable for it. In Frosts poem "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" (Literature and Its Writers, 807), Frost writes about an experience in the first person, of a man on a journey, who stops by a some woods. He comments on ... is often used a source of life, as a reviver of things. However, this lake is frozen, there is no life in the lake now. Its ice, not water. The darkness of the night is death. The pure white of the snow is life. Frost must continue through the snow, into the night. He mu...

• Word Count: 1767
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

... to be. The first possibility is that there is a force of evil at work that has created a "design of darkness to appall."(Line 13) Satan perhaps, orchestrated a scene of destruction in the color of innocence and purity. The second is that there is no order in the universe at all, or at least none that operates on such a minor scale. The "design of ... darkness" could only exist if "design governs in a thing so small."(Line 14) Since God is said to be governance of all things great and small, the possibility that design doesn't govern in miniscule matter immediately raises the issues that...

• Word Count: 1104
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... also an important message to it and that is that when we are feeling isolated or alone, it's important to turn to someone. When we are walking in darkness par se, we shouldn't be "unwilling to explain", or ignore an "interrupted cry" – we should reach out. Once again ... not life is predestined and led by design, saying, "what but design of darkness to appal? If design govern in a thing so small." "Design" is a poem that evokes sadness and shock in me, but also opens my eyes to the harsh realities of the world and offers ... apple picking now, essence of winter sleep is on the night: ...

• Word Count: 2104
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: High School

... death. Some people rush through their lives and others actually stop to take in their surroundings and enjoy life. In Robert Frost's "Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening" and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls", the two poets represent people in life as a traveler on his way to some unknown destination. In Frost's poem, the traveler wishes he could stop for ... with white fluffy snow. The setting shows how beautiful life is, and how we should all take at least one moment to notice it. In Longfellow's poem, the setting is a remote coastline with light brown sand ...

• Word Count: 642
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... thoughts are triggered when he questions his life's purpose, including his future expectations and obligations to society. He is tempted to remain in this rural environment but, in the end, decides to move on. The theme's significance is clear, which is, the implicit epiphany or sudden realization that his ... life is half over and lacks meaning; the conflict is to decide whether to remain in the woods or re-enter the strange opposing world with its many responsibilities. The first verse simply introduces the setting. The narrator mentions that ... for his horse. Frost gives him human t...

• Word Count: 769
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography