Journeys Through Robert Frost and Related Texts
Journeys
Dating back to as far as the epic of Gilgamesh, literature has explored the most prevalent aspect of human existence, journeys. Everything is a journey in life; we go through journeys to discover things about ourselves and the world around us. It’s said that to truly learn something you have to do it yourself, but we don’t have the time to go on enough journeys to quench our cravings for answers. That’s why literature has offered us the chance to learn something, without actually doing it, so that we can learn the message from a journey, without actually going on it.
Two excellent examples of literature doing this are in the texts stopping by woods on a snowing evening by Robert Frost and City of beasts by Isabel Allende. The texts have elements of physical journeys (getting from point a-b) and inner journeys which is a journey within us.
City of beasts is a text about a young boy named Alex who is forced into an adventure with his Grandmother into the Amazon rainforest. Stopping by woods on a snowy evening is a poem about an unidentified persona riding through dark woods on a snowy evening. I think that the main inner journey expressed in both of the poems is an inner journey through the temptations of what we want, and the responsibility of what we must.
These texts are also both demonstrative of how a physical journey is usually the catalyst of an inner journey. In Frost’s text the ignition of the inner journey is the persona’s movement through a snowy forest, far away from human civilization. In Allende’s text the inner journey is brought about via Alex Cold’s adventure through the wild Amazon. Allende and Frost both teach us that physical journeys and inner journeys almost always go hand-in-hand.
Also in Frost’s text the persona’s venture in the forest is unplanned, the only unusual thing about the journey is when he “stops without a farmhouse near”. This is a similar concept in Allende’s text, as Alex is forced to go on his adventure which
Dating back to as far as the epic of Gilgamesh, literature has explored the most prevalent aspect of human existence, journeys. Everything is a journey in life; we go through journeys to discover things about ourselves and the world around us. It’s said that to truly learn something you have to do it yourself, but we don’t have the time to go on enough journeys to quench our cravings for answers. That’s why literature has offered us the chance to learn something, without actually doing it, so that we can learn the message from a journey, without actually going on it.
Two excellent examples of literature doing this are in the texts stopping by woods on a snowing evening by Robert Frost and City of beasts by Isabel Allende. The texts have elements of physical journeys (getting from point a-b) and inner journeys which is a journey within us.
City of beasts is a text about a young boy named Alex who is forced into an adventure with his Grandmother into the Amazon rainforest. Stopping by woods on a snowy evening is a poem about an unidentified persona riding through dark woods on a snowy evening. I think that the main inner journey expressed in both of the poems is an inner journey through the temptations of what we want, and the responsibility of what we must.
These texts are also both demonstrative of how a physical journey is usually the catalyst of an inner journey. In Frost’s text the ignition of the inner journey is the persona’s movement through a snowy forest, far away from human civilization. In Allende’s text the inner journey is brought about via Alex Cold’s adventure through the wild Amazon. Allende and Frost both teach us that physical journeys and inner journeys almost always go hand-in-hand.
Also in Frost’s text the persona’s venture in the forest is unplanned, the only unusual thing about the journey is when he “stops without a farmhouse near”. This is a similar concept in Allende’s text, as Alex is forced to go on his adventure which