Desert Places
- Created by: Harleym7000
- Created on: 03-04-18 17:57
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- Desert Places
- Robert Frost's 'Desert Places' is a testament to the harrowing nature of solidarity. By subjecting the narrator to the final moments of daylight on a snowy evening, an understanding about the nature of blank spaces and emptiness becomes guratively illuminated.
- The poem's loneliness has the ability to transcend nature and drill a hole through the mind of the narrator so that all hope for relationships with man and nature are abandoned.
- In the first stanza, ?snow? and ?night? are juxtaposed to create a sense of loneliness and emptiness. Meaning is derived from the effects they have on their surroundings and on the narrator.
- The dramatic realization of the absence of objects during the brief moments of sunset on a snowy evening comes fast under the scrutiny of the narrator, and profound implications for him/her about the desolate nature of his/her own loneliness and place in the world, as the passage of time puts his/her place into perspective.
- The time and speed at which the surroundings becomes enveloped becomes instrumental to the desolation resented throughout the poem.
- Had the evening been observed earlier in the day, the finality of the blankness would have been cancelled out by more vivid visualizations about the shape of the leaves, colors illuminated in the light, and numbers of specific animals scurrying about in the open field.
- However, the simplistic nature of the language presents no comfort or description by its dry context. The narrator speaks of ?empty spaces? (13) paralleled with the dry nature of the language to create the loneliness of the poem.
- Alone with his/her thoughts, the narrator focuses on how the nothingness affects his/her view of the world. Nature is represented as the creative force that breeds the nothingness. The poem indicates, ?The woods around it have it?it is theirs.
- All animals are smothered in their lairs? (5- 6). The emptiness belongs to nature, because nature itself is its creator. Again, no particular animal is named or described.
- The absence of description and presence of dry generalization creates a mood of dominance by emptiness. The animals are ?smothered? or subordinate to the impending will of nothingness that surrounds them.
- The narrator states, ?I am too absent-spirited to count;/ The loneliness includes me unawares? (7-8). Here the narrator becomes a part of the emptiness to which he/she is subject to
- Being unable to count or name the animals brings the narrator to an absent-minded state, where the dominant emptiness takes control over thought,blanketing the memory like snow, so that nothing is the prevalent thought.
- The narrator states, ?I am too absent-spirited to count;/ The loneliness includes me unawares? (7-8). Here the narrator becomes a part of the emptiness to which he/she is subject to
- The absence of description and presence of dry generalization creates a mood of dominance by emptiness. The animals are ?smothered? or subordinate to the impending will of nothingness that surrounds them.
- All animals are smothered in their lairs? (5- 6). The emptiness belongs to nature, because nature itself is its creator. Again, no particular animal is named or described.
- Alone with his/her thoughts, the narrator focuses on how the nothingness affects his/her view of the world. Nature is represented as the creative force that breeds the nothingness. The poem indicates, ?The woods around it have it?it is theirs.
- However, the simplistic nature of the language presents no comfort or description by its dry context. The narrator speaks of ?empty spaces? (13) paralleled with the dry nature of the language to create the loneliness of the poem.
- Had the evening been observed earlier in the day, the finality of the blankness would have been cancelled out by more vivid visualizations about the shape of the leaves, colors illuminated in the light, and numbers of specific animals scurrying about in the open field.
- The time and speed at which the surroundings becomes enveloped becomes instrumental to the desolation resented throughout the poem.
- Robert Frost's 'Desert Places' is a testament to the harrowing nature of solidarity. By subjecting the narrator to the final moments of daylight on a snowy evening, an understanding about the nature of blank spaces and emptiness becomes guratively illuminated.
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