Robert Frost - Relating to life experiencesRobert Frost - Relating to life experiences The road not taken, repairing the wall, birch trees, stopping in the woods on a snowy evening Robert Frost is remembered as one of the most popular and honored poets of the twentieth century. (Mertins-Frost) His popularity is partly due to his experiences and the universal themes he uses to create his poems about relationships, nature, and the world. (Mertins-Frost) Frost's life experiences help him create the vivid scenes he sets in his poem. Among the poems that relate to his life experiences are "The Road Not Taken, Mending Wall, Birches, and Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." In “The Road Not Taken” Frost begins by describing the choice the narrator must make when the path he is on ends at a fork in the road. The traveler decides to take the road less travelled, knowing that he may never return to see the other again. “The Road Not Taken” is a metaphor for the narrator's journeys through life. He comes to a point in his journey where he has to make a decision about the direction his life will take. It seems like one path would be easy for him and the other would be more difficult. It could, perhaps, be compared to choosing a career that would require less work, or a career that would be challenging. The narrator, of course, chooses the challenging one, and is obviously quite happy with his choice, as he says it "made a difference." (Frost) Frost suggests to his readers that when faced with life decisions, the path that seems the most challenging can often be the most rewarding. It's a lesson that should be taken to heart, because Frost may have discovered the secret to a fulfilling life. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Robert Frost himself states that "The Road Not Taken" was written about a friend who had gone to war, a person who knew that when thinking back to the choice of the road to take, the most challenging one, in this case leaving for the war, it would have been the most satisfying for him. (Mertins-Frost) He knows that he has given up a good part of his life and that his life may never be the same when he returns from war, but for him serving for his country would be more rewarding. This stuck in Frost's head and he couldn't bear not to write a poem about it. (Mertins-Frost) Robert Frost's "Mending Wall" is said to be one of his favorite poems. (Mertins-Frost) Mending Wall is about the construction of a wall between two men and their homes, however, looking deeper into the meaning, the poem seems to suggest the creation of boundaries between the elements of the physical world and the inner world. This seems to be suggested not only by the poetry but also by Frosts upbringing as he always showed a great appreciation for nature and sharing the world in all his poems. (Thompson) The two neighbors in this poem initially seem to build a wall around the territory, but if we look deeper, it seems to be more about demarcating boundaries to stop arguments. The neighbors do not share the same ideology regarding the construction of the wall. It seems like they have to repeat this task every spring, but while one neighbor does it out of tradition and because he wants it, the other just seems to go along with it; he doesn't seem to understand. The very title "Mending Wall" seems to suggest something about the poem. The adjective "Mending" takes the gerund, which means it speaks of the present. Perhaps this suggests that the task is continuous and ever-present. The fact that it's not called "Mending The Wall" or "Mending A Wall" also suggeststhat it is not just one wall, but can be any wall anywhere. The title given to it makes its meaning very universal. The overall tone of "Mending Wall" is quite ironic at times completely uninterested in others, it gives the poem a rather human feel. This increases the spontaneous effect. Furthermore, with the use of actual dialogue in the poem, it seems that what is not the neighbor's speech in the poem is actually Frosts' speech, perhaps what he was thinking in his head at the time. (Thompson) In "Birches", Frost's words represent an easy version of the world, a spiritual place that may seem difficult but there is always something that helps you overcome the situation. Earth is once again the place of love and provides a free stability on this. basis, while the aspiration to heaven offers a more spiritual type of guidance, a contact with God, which provides a central orientation for the soul. “The conflict between optimistic and pessimistic conceptions of the world is the source of basic ambiguity and tension in Frost's work” (Thompson) This poem seems to be entirely about woods and trees. As the name suggests, this is the main focus of the story. They are shown as an adversary for a boy who, once defeated, although very resilient, will never get up again. He describes them as being bent by an ice storm, but he'd like to think of them as being bent by this guy. The use of the ice storm and the boy seems to represent his melancholy about aging and his desire to be young again. This poem was written when Frost was about 45 years old, around the time he would have a mid-life crisis. He sees that he is no longer the young man he once was, incapable of climbing trees like he used to, nor of playing like that. He talks about when he was a "birch swinger" and how he dreams of being one again. He knows this is not a reality for him. Frost also uses trees in this poem to represent a way to get away from the worries and trials of life on Earth. Talk about leaving and coming back to start over. Climbing "towards the sky". He longs to be free from everything, but then says he is afraid that fate might misunderstand him and take him away, never to return. This is like most of us today. We want to go to Heaven, but we don't want to die to get there. In "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" Frost tells us nothing about the narrator. We never know anything about who "I" is. The only image we have of "I" is that he likes the woods, the snow and the peace found there. I have the idea that this is a man, on an important mission. It should be important to go out riding in a snowstorm, even if you rode everywhere. Furthermore, “I” has miles to go and “promises to keep.” This indicates a level of responsibility that would suggest the narrator is a man. In the first stanza of Robert Frost's Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening we find the speaker reflecting on the beauty of a wooded area with falling snow. "Whose woods these are, I think I know. His house, however, is in town; he won't see me stopping here to watch his woods fill with snow." (Frost) You can feel the wonder and thoughtful peace of the speakers when you look into the woods that night. He doesn't know the owner of the land but is still attracted by the beauty of the scene. Frost offers a scene that is absorbed by the reader and digested for a while in the speaker's mind. It shows us that it's okay to take a minute in a hurried hour and reflect on your surroundings, whether it's a snowy forest or a quiet room. “If even the most superficial reader takes anything away from Frost's poems, it is likely to be a memorable impression created by the overwhelming presence of nature.”.