Analysis Of Acquainted With The Night

Night is associated to darkness, emptiness, and sometimes-even loneliness. Robert Frost’s “Acquainted With the Night” shows the character, which is the narrator, being overly too familiar almost friendly with the nighttime. The narrator of the poem is a man who described what he felt as he took a walk at night seemingly searching for something he had apparently lost. This “modernist” character was disposing loneliness throughout the whole poem. He is a representative of the alienated person typical of modern literature because he tried to seek out what were causing his loneliness from his environment. Even though the narrator of the poem seemed as though he was friendly with the night, his relationship with it projects a sad and lonely mood.
By saying, “I have been one acquainted with the night,” (1) the character is really expressing his true feelings of having been reminded of loneliness at nighttime. The character spoke about walking all by himself at night. By doing so, he described what he sees as well as what he heard at that time. It was as if he was searching for an answer to his loneliness as he walked up and down those streets, seeking for the answer that could possibly lighten his heart once again. By hearing “[A] … far away … interrupted cry, came over houses from another street, But not to call me back or say good-bye” (8-10), it was as if he was waiting for another person to come and help him alleviate the feeling of loneliness from his heart. These words that he expressed almost showed how his heart probably had skipped a beat as he heard the noise because it could have been what he was searching for at night. This man was a very sad and lonely person. He still pursued the night even though it reminds him nothing but loneliness. Perhaps he could be easing some of his feelings by searching an answer in the darkness and emptiness that nighttime has to offer. Its as if he was waiting to be reunited with something or someone that he had lost in the past. This character does represent many people in the real world. He along with other people are so deep into their emotions that they still follow a path where nothing but loneliness is reminded for them, pursuing it as if drowning themselves in those very emotions that they feel. Though some of these people in the real world may not be using the method as he does, its still the same path of seeking out an answer for their emotions.