The Poem — страница 2

forest to watch it fill up with snow. Here, the woods in the poem symbolize death. The woods and death are both looked at as very cold miserable things. Frost is trying to convey, through the picture of cold and dreary woods, that the man is contemplating suicide. At this point in the man’s life, getting lost and dying in the woods seems easier than facing all of his troubles. In the next stanza, his horse is pulling at the reins bells trying to get him to leave the cold woods “He gives his harness bells a shake”(9). The horse is representing the side of him that wants to return and confront his troubles. In the following stanza, only serene thoughts are portrayed. Again, the man is pondering whether or not to stay in the deep and lonely woods. “The woods are lovely, dark

and deep”(13). With this line, he is telling himself he would die in peace if he stayed within the depth of the silent woods. “But I have promises to keep,/ And miles to go before I sleep,/ And miles to go before I sleep”(14-16). These final lines remind the man that he has commitments to loved ones to support them; he can not abandon these people that he loves so much. These lines are repeated to warrant that continuing home is the fit thing for the man to do. By analyzing these three key elements of poetry, it is much easier to gain the full meaning of a poem. Understanding that the man in the poem was contemplating suicide opens the poem up to be much more than four trivial stanzas. It becomes a picture of how someone who might be contemplating suicide thinks and feels.

Searching for the complete understanding of a poem is like a journey for the reader; the destination is reached when the author’s true meaning is successfully conveyed.