Analysis of the Wood Pile
"THE WOOD-PILE": A COMMUNION WITH NATURE
Robert Frost 's poem, "The Wood-Pile", focuses on a man who adventures himself in a frozen swamp. Away from home, he fears the environment surrounding him. Until a small bird, flies ahead of him and draws his attention on a decayed woodpile. This marks a turning point in the poem. The man, hypnotized by the wood pile, feels more comfortable because he knows humans were here before him. He enters in some sort of communion with nature. In his line by line analysis of Frosts poem "On the Woodpile", J.Donald Crowley states that home is a place where one feel 's comfortable and lives peacefully with his self. Through his poem, Frost explains home is an abstraction lost and gained through several stage of life, which requires harmonic relations with nature and our surroundings.
No doubt the speaker 's sentiments of fear and insecurity, added to the fact he is lost, makes him feel away from home, he doesn 't show any interest for nature. Fear is a recurring theme in the poem. A point on which Crowley agrees: "his fearful response to that landscape" (Crowley, page 1). The speaker is frightened of the woods. Winter and cold are the cause of this. Everything is "frozen" (Frost, line 1), there are no sign of life, everything is static around him. He didn 't appreciate walking in the snow "One foot went through" (Frost, line 5). It may not be a dangerous situation, but the idea of instability, of the ground not holding beneath one 's feet, adds a touch of insecurity to the mood of the poem. Although it is not explicitly said, there are a few things about this person that are evident from the situation. For instance, he seems to be a contemplative person, the sort of person who would take a walk without having a clear goal in mind. For a moment he wants to go back, but something urges him to go deeper, marking the conflict in his mind "turn back from here No, I will go on further and we shall see" (Frost, line 2-3). He decides to go
Robert Frost 's poem, "The Wood-Pile", focuses on a man who adventures himself in a frozen swamp. Away from home, he fears the environment surrounding him. Until a small bird, flies ahead of him and draws his attention on a decayed woodpile. This marks a turning point in the poem. The man, hypnotized by the wood pile, feels more comfortable because he knows humans were here before him. He enters in some sort of communion with nature. In his line by line analysis of Frosts poem "On the Woodpile", J.Donald Crowley states that home is a place where one feel 's comfortable and lives peacefully with his self. Through his poem, Frost explains home is an abstraction lost and gained through several stage of life, which requires harmonic relations with nature and our surroundings.
No doubt the speaker 's sentiments of fear and insecurity, added to the fact he is lost, makes him feel away from home, he doesn 't show any interest for nature. Fear is a recurring theme in the poem. A point on which Crowley agrees: "his fearful response to that landscape" (Crowley, page 1). The speaker is frightened of the woods. Winter and cold are the cause of this. Everything is "frozen" (Frost, line 1), there are no sign of life, everything is static around him. He didn 't appreciate walking in the snow "One foot went through" (Frost, line 5). It may not be a dangerous situation, but the idea of instability, of the ground not holding beneath one 's feet, adds a touch of insecurity to the mood of the poem. Although it is not explicitly said, there are a few things about this person that are evident from the situation. For instance, he seems to be a contemplative person, the sort of person who would take a walk without having a clear goal in mind. For a moment he wants to go back, but something urges him to go deeper, marking the conflict in his mind "turn back from here No, I will go on further and we shall see" (Frost, line 2-3). He decides to go
Cited: Frost, Robert. "The Wood-Pile". The Columbia Anthology of American Poetry. Jay Parini. New York. Columbia University Press. Page 310. Print. Crowley, J.Donald. "On The Wood-Pile". Internet : http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/frost/woodpile.htm Stefano Tasso Paper 1: Final version WR 100: 02/15/2010 �PAGE � �PAGE �4�