FREE ESSAY ON THE POEM STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING

THE POEM STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING

The Poem Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
This poem is layered with different meanings and it requires the reader to contemplate
Frost's emotions behind the words. Like most of Frost's poems, Stopping By Woods On A
Snowy Evening can be read on several level yet you can ignore them all and still enjoy
the surface meaning. On the surface of this poem, it's talking about a man traveling
through the woods with his horse and they stop near someone's house. The horse wants the
man to continue but he wants to stay. Being in the woods causes the man to reflect on the
larger tensions between duty; his promises to keep(13) and the desire to do what he
wants. However, in order to fully understand the emotions and the deeper meanings within
this poem, we'll analyze these three aspects of the poem: images, rhythms and meanings. 
This entire poem uses words that paint very vivid images of gorgeous winter, lovely dark
woods and peacefulness, which inside causes a certain friction or tension. Also there is
a sense of darkness in the poem, such as in the darkest evening of the year(8) and The
woods are lovely, dark and deep(16). And the fact that the poem takes place in the
isolated woods, there is a certain quality of peacefulness and stillness being portrayed
as in the frozen lake(12) and The only other sound's the sweep/Of easy wind and downy
flake(11-12). Between the woods and frozen lake(7). This notion of being in between those
two things is a significant tension in the poem. Therefore without these exact words,
this poem could lack several layers of meaning and emotion. Just below the surface there
is the sleep/death metaphor, and the undercurrent of gentle longing for death tinges the
surface with a melancholy that reinforces and plays off the night and winter images. But
the imagery of the poem quoted above creates in the reader the actual feelings of peace,
beauty and tension; these actual feelings make up a range of experience entirely
different from the experience of the rational thought that sums up the poem.
All stanzas have a regular rhyme scheme of the last word of the first, second and fourth
lines in each stanza (AABA, BBCB, etc.) except for the last stanza, which is all in the
same rhyme (DDDD). Besides that, the last word from the third line rhymes with the
following stanza's lines one, two and four. These perfect rhymes and rhythms lend itself
to the light restful feel of the poem. Frost's choice of written words are much like
spoken English which lends itself to the conversational feel that his poems have. Form
wise, note the predominance of soft, sibilant sounds, evoking the sweep of easy wind and
downy flake(11-12). Also the sounds associated with nature in the poem all sound
soothing, such as sweep(11) and deep(13) which suggests further that the woods is a place
of refuge for the man. The change in rhyme in the final stanza gives us a clue about the
shift in the content, too. The shift comes at a point in the poem when we might expect an
insight or answer to the question the poem poses, but the same rhyme throughout this
final stanza suggests instead that the man is still thinking or still asking the
questions. In addition, the final two lines repeat one another, which also suggests that
a problem or tension still exists, that the poem doesn't completely provide resolution. 
Every word has a key role in the deeper meaning of the poem. Normally poems are shorter
than other works. This makes each word of a poem extremely significant. Frost's major
meaning seemed to be that one should take time to stop and notice the beauty around us
but not to dawdle and dwell too long, as there is much to do in a lifetime. In the first
stanza, To watch his woods fill up with snow(4), we see a man stopping in the 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.