Graves 1 Haley Graves ENG 489 Research Paper A Frostian Approach to Grief, Modernity, and Intricacy As an award-winning poet, Robert Frost was viewed as an influential member of the early twentieth century. He arose to stardom during the Industrial Revolution, though he opposed the modernization that came with the time period. Rather, Frost was an intellect interested in the dark workings of the mind, and natural and raw artistic forms. This fascination of natural, raw emotions was caused by the great grief and loss of many of his loved ones. Frost channeled these emotions of grief and sadness into many of his own poems, creating his own process of grieving. He was a clever and intelligent man also, and was interested in the portrayal of the mind in his literature. Frost wanted to create many portrayals of the daily human experience of the ordinary man with many twists and turns. Most reader s commonly mistook Frost s poems as works of literature that are easily interpretive, only to discover through further analysis that he has created multiple, complex interpretations. He creates the complexity through his usage of words and form, while maintaining simplicity with his natural content. Frost s poems The Home Burial and The Road Not Taken evoke the emotions of grief and sadness through Frost s use of narrative and content. Frost uses modernity and philosophical ideology to incorporate themes of the rural poor and the disappointment often associated with that lifestyle. Through his style of writing and incorporation of themes of the ordinary man and sadness, Frost was not only going against the modernist movement, but was creating an outlet for his own emotions of grief and sadness.
Graves 2 A modern poet, Frost was constantly criticized by other modernists for his content of nature and emphasis on the ordinary man. Rather than focusing on the idealized industrialization of the time period, Frost focused his content on the rural and poor lifestyle, a lifestyle that he was personally familiar with having grown up on a farm. In addition to experiencing a challenging, poor upbringing, Frost experienced devastating losses in both his career and family. He lost both of his parents before he was thirty, and many of his other family members experienced traumatic mental illnesses. He outlived four out of his six children and his wife, many of them dying from illness ( Robert Frost ). Many of his poems are centralized on the themes of rural grief and sadness, which are the themes that industrialized public criticized. Though his content was critiqued, Frost s form rarely is. Academic scholar Dana Gioia argues that Frost s use of speech rhythms; his focus on the rural poor, his use of dark psychology, and his innovative use of the narrative form were influential. His influence was rooted in his usage of a unique structure of the dramatic monologue. Frost introduced the modern concept of using uninterrupted speech of a character within poetry. Gioia argues that Frost used his modernized form of the narrative to dignify the rural poor. Frost dignified the rural poor by discovering an old way to be new, by incorporating older narrative techniques, with his own style. He did also utilize the old ballads, linear narratives, dramatic monologues, and dramatic narratives throughout his creation of poems. These older styles of poems are exceptionally suited for romantic ideas, as they were created during the romanticism era. The dramatic narratives and monologues were also suited for expressing grief and emotions as Frost was able to create detailed stories.
Graves 3 Frost is able to evoke sadness by incorporating grief in his dramatic narrative Home Burial in order to show the trauma associated with a parent losing a child. Frost was entirely too familiar with the concept of losing children, and perhaps had his own difficulties of dealing with his grief. Home Burial has many of Frost s new styles of dramatic narrative incorporated in it that evoke powerful emotions. Though his composition of the dramatic narrative is structurally traditional, Frost creates a more conversational dialogue instead of a traditional romanticized narrative. His use of dashes creates dramatic pauses, which place emphasis on the emotions, giving the conversation a realistic feel. By giving the conversation realism, Frost is creating a more relatable nature to the poem for anyone familiar with the concept of grief. An applicable emotion of grief to the ordinary man is created through Frost s innovative usage of dashes in his narratives. Home Burial centralizes on the theme of the differences in styles of grieving, and also the guarded nature when discussing it. In Home Burial, as the husband and wife are arguing over their differences in grieving styles, the husband questions the wife about discussing their dead son to which she replies Not you! ---Oh, where s my hat? Oh, I don t need it!/ I must get out of here. I must get air. --/ I don t know rightly whether any man can (Frost, 205). During the twentieth century, and even today, men are expected to suppress their emotions, especially sadness. The wife in Home Burial recognizes this stereotyped stigma, but is clearly desperate for her husband to discuss his emotions. The dashes Frost incorporated impart realness to the conversation, portraying the flighty and tense nature of the wife who is unable to discuss her deceased child. Rather than discuss
Graves 4 the relevant topic at hand, the wife occupies herself with trivial tasks and escaping the conversation, which is made evident through the abrupt change in ideas between the dashes. Frost also uses the dashes to showcase interruptions in the conversations, which evokes realistic hostility and pauses in an argument. Gioia argues that dashes create reminiscent emotions that are made powerful with Frost s usage of a naturalistic short story or narrative (Gioia). Like many of the other modernists, Frost altered the traditional styles of narratives to create something new and innovative. Many of Frost s innovative ideas of creating a new, modern narrative derived from older ideas that were utilized by many literary figures. Frost s usage of a blank verse filled with dashes derived from Shakespearean verse. Frost incorporated modern concepts of intensity and compressed ideas, while introducing new notions of discussing psychological ideas through character development. Rather than using the commonly utilized dramatic narrative with uninterrupted speech, Frost created dialogues with italics, pauses, and line breaks to incorporate interruptions like Shakespeare. Shakespeare was a great influence in the sense that Frost was encouraged to further Shakespeare s usage of fluid dialogues. In Home Burial, the wife is arguing with her husband What was it brought you up to think it the thing/ To take your mother-loss of a first child/ So inconsolably in the face of love./ You d think his memory might be satisfied--- / There you go sneering now! (Frost, 206). The dashes and line interruptions create a sense of realness to the conversation and eliminate any stiffness that is normally associated with narratives. Like authors Tennyson, Shakespeare, and Milton, Frost applied dramatic elements to his narratives to create rich, lyrical poems. Frost wanted to create
Graves 5 conversations, not monotonous, stiff dialogues. He does this by creating vivid characters in realistic situations and settings. A rural, country home filled with a tense marriage, amid an argument, provides for a realistic backdrop for a poem. Frost does not write about extravagant locations, like a room in a mansion filled with wealthy women trivially discussing Michelangelo. Rather he speaks to the everyday, ordinary lifestyle, and one that was close to his own life. Similar to Frost s deviation of traditional writing in Home Burial, Frost s ballad, The Road Not Taken, also differs from the traditional modernist movement. Unlike the majority of the ballads of his time, Frost s ballads combined traditional and unique usages of rhyming stanzas. Frost did not entirely create his own style of ballad, but rather combined characteristics of both old and new. Gioia states that Frost s ballads are a combination of early narrative poetry and contemporary short story, which gives a modern feel to traditional narration. The Road Not Taken, though not a narrative like Home Burial, also has dashes incorporated into the poem. The Road Not Taken, however, has one sole dash, but a singular dash that holds great significance. In the last lines of the poem, the speaker writes Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--/ I took the one less traveled by,/and that has made all the difference (Frost, 210). These last lines of the poem are perhaps the most significant lines of The Road Not Taken, but the significance is taken to a greater level through the inclusion of the dash. The dash creates a dramatic pause, a pause that causes the reader to pay careful attention to what the speaker has to say. A dash places emphasis on the roads and the speaker, and how he took the one less traveled by (Frost, 210). By acknowledging the speaker deliberately choosing the less traveled path, the reader can then fully understand that the road less
Graves 6 traveled has made all the difference (Frost, 210). The incorporation of the dash creates hesitation, hesitation that is present when making any big decision in life. Dashes and unique deviations from the traditional modernist movement are just some of the few features of Frost s poetry. According to Bojana Vujin, Frost also incorporated deception into his work. Typically, Frost can be perceived as an enduring, genuine poet, however Vujin argues that Frost s poetry is filled with irony and deceit. Without being aware of the deception occurring in his poetry, a reader can easily misinterpret Frost s poems. Deception can strengthen poem-reading enjoyment if a reader is made aware of the irony, as the reader is forced to dig deeper into the poem s meanings to figure out why the author has incorporated that deception. Frost s deception arguably creates greater enjoyment for the reader, as the possibilities for interpretations increases. Straightforward poetry can be boring, simplistic, and dull-a stark contrast to a Frostian poem without a limit to interpretations. While Frost wrote on a seemingly boring topic, the rural life, his poetry is made interesting by an inclusion of irony and deception. This style of deception is present in what Vujin calls the most anthologized and most misunderstood poems, The Road Not Taken (Vujin). At first glance, The Road Not Taken appears to be a poem based on decision-making and which decision will ultimately be the best one. The poem is seemingly a clichéd life lesson of choosing an unbeaten path, leaving the crowd, and reaching the right destination that had made all the difference in life (Frost, 210). Upon close inspection, however, the reader can perceive the deception, and realize that the poem is in fact, a lesson in self-deception (Vujin). The poem begins by stating that the traveler must make a choice between two different paths, and realizing that regardless of the path he chooses, he will be a different
Graves 7 person afterwards. On path is described as being bent in the undergrowth, while the other is just as fair,/and having perhaps the better claim,/ Because it was grassy and wanted wear (Frost, 209). While the latter path seems better because it was grassy and not overgrown with weeds, the important part to recognize is that the two paths were just as fair in comparison to one another (Frost, 209). However, the reader must question what exactly is the overgrowth. Is it weeds, or low-lying trees, or green shrubbery? Overgrowth is another form of deception within The Road Not Taken, as it is intentionally meant to be viewed as unfavorable, when in actuality, the overgrowth could be another form of grass or greenery. Frost s ironic choice of words create depth and complexity to the message his is trying to portray to his readers. Vujin also argues that the perception that one road is less-traveled than the other is incorrect through the line that the passing there/ Had worn them really about the same (Frost, 209). Frost deliberately created lines that could deceive the reader into thinking that the two roads were completely different, when in actuality the two roads were quite similar. The differences in between the roads is not what the reader should be focusing on, but rather the difference the speaker will feel once he chooses a path to walk down. Frost wants the reader to realize that regardless of the path chosen, the speaker will be a changed person based on experience. Any path chosen in an individual s life will have made all the difference as each individual choice we make influences our lives. As the speaker of The Road Not Taken makes his decision, it is possible that the speaker realizes the significance of his choices. The magnitude of the choice is made evident through the speaker s realization that [he] doubted if [he] should ever come back to that choice (Frost, 209). By realizing that there is no opportunity to return to that
Graves 8 very moment of standing at the fork of the road, with the prospect of choosing between two paths, great importance is placed on the sobering finality of a life choice. Is there regret in the path chosen? Would the other path have been a better choice? Frost leaves these questions to the interpretation of the reader, though implying that the speaker is in his own self-denial. Through the lines I took the one less traveled by, Vujin argues that the speaker wants to believe that he made an original choice, but deep down he knows that neither road was truly unique (Frost, 210). The Road Not Taken is perhaps what the poem is really about, as the speaker is questioning his decision, wondering what the outcome would have been if he had chosen the other path (Vujin). Vujin writes, this is not a poem about individuality; this is a poem about self-deceit and the rewriting of one s own history, with a dash of regret and a sprinkle of irony (Vujin). Similar to the emotions present in Home Burial, The Road Not Taken is filled with emotional distress. While the couple in Burial is filled with regret for the emotions they are unable to discuss, the speaker in The Road Not Taken is filled with regret on whether or not he made the right choice. The speaker states I should be telling this with a sigh, emphasizing the heavy emotions that are present in the poem. The inclusion of Oh and exclamation points also reiterate the lament for an answer or indication of whether or not the speaker chose the correct path (Vujin). The Road Not Taken is not a hopeful poem about originality, but rather a pessimistic poem centralizing on regret. The constant contradiction within the poem about the descriptions of the two paths reiterates the contradictions that the speaker feels about his own emotions. Furthermore, the poem s tenses contradict themselves in the narrative style, as critic Larry L. Finger argues that the poem switches from past to present to future tense.
Graves 9 The beginning of the poem is the speaker recalling the decision he was faced with, then the poem switches to the present tense with the speaker declaring I shall be telling this with a sigh to the future somewhere ages and ages hence (Frost, 209). Finger argues that this switching of tenses creates instability in the poem, similar to the instability the speaker feels about his own decision-making. Author Hinrichsen defines instability as uncertainty that is inevitably caused by fear and anxiety of the unknown (Hinrichsen). In both Home Burial and The Road Not Taken, fear of the unknown is the root of all the problems each character is experiencing. Home Burial begins with the lines She was starting down,/ looking back over her shoulder at some fear./ she took a doubtful step and then undid it/to raise herself and look again (Frost, 204). Immediately Frost sets the reader up to expect anxiety, and also to question the source of the fear. It is not until the end of the poem that the reader realizes that the couple has a fear of one another. Not a physical fear, but rather an emotional fear of whether or not they will ever be able to communicate effectively with one another again. Author Lisa Hinrichsen argues that Frost is able to contain and control the fear present in his poems through what she calls the defensive eye. Frost is able to do this by switching descriptions and linguistic movement so that the anxiety is centralized into object-specific fear. The object-specific fear in Home Burial is centralized on the burial of the dead baby, as the home burial is used as an outlet for both husband and wife to attempt to grieve. They are unable to grieve together, however, as neither individual understands the other s grieving tactics. The wife perceives her husband as cold and cruel. He tries to reconcile with his wife begging, There s something I should like to ask you, dear with
Graves 10 her reply, You don t know how to ask it (Frost, 205). He tries to understand, begging her to Help me, then (Frost, 205). It is now evident that there is a severe emotional disconnect between husband and wife, and that something is blocking their communication. This thing that is hindering their relationship and grief from moving on is the fear of the unknown, similar to the fear of which road to take in The Road Not Taken. The wife in Home Burial, after watching her husband dig the grave for their son, tells her husband I thought, who is that man? I didn t know you (Frost, 206). Hinrichsen includes Freudian concepts in her journal, specifically focusing on the fear of loss of love and the fear of death. These focuses relate directly to Home Burial, where the wife is experiencing anxiety concerning the death of her child, and also the potential loss of love from her husband as their grief continues to tear them apart (Hinrichsen). The husband also experiences anxiety in regards to losing the love that exists between his wife and himself as he says, Though I don t like such things twixt those that love./ Two that don t love can t live together without them./ But two that do can t live together with them (Frost, 206). If the couple must change their personalities, or living preferences, then the husband believes that they cannot truly love one another. This is a valid and fair point, however, the root of the problem is the couple not knowing what needs to be fixed or changed. Because of the innate fear both husband and wife are experiencing after their world was shattered by the death of their child, that fear is transferred to almost every other daily life experiences. Hinrichsen emphasizes the uncontrollable nature of anxiety and how ultimately, anxiety produces feelings of helplessness. She defines anxiety as a fear that has no thing (nothing) as its object and that the conversion of absence into
Graves 11 loss gives anxiety an identifiable object-the lost object-and generates the hope that anxiety may be eliminated or overcome (Hinrichsen). The objects that the couple in Home Burial fixates on are the mound in which the child was buried, and a birch fence. Rather than discussing the issue of grieving and perceived insensitivity, the couple focuses their emotions on physical objects. By fixating on a physical object, they are attempting to eliminate the uncertainty of fear of the unknown. Within Frost s poetry, Hinrichsen also argues that Freudian themes are present. The Freudian concept of anxiety causing a search for identity is also apparent in The Road Not Taken. There is a fear of the unknown present, as the speaker looked down one [path] as far as [he] could, unable to see the final location (Frost, 209). As the speaker of the poem contemplates his choice to choose the path less traveled by, he realizes that that choice has played an unchangeable role in developing his identity. According to Freudian concepts, the identity is established by the many series of actions people choose, including those both good and bad (Hinrichsen). The speaker of the poem, though stating that perhaps one day he ll return to the fork in the road and try the other path, he yet knowing how way leads on to way, [he] doubted if [he] should ever come back (Frost, 209). Regardless of whether or not the speaker does return to that same spot, he will have already been influenced by the previous choice of path, making any future selection irrelevant. The realization of being unable to completely change his identity after choosing the path less traveled is reiterated by the sighs the speaker would have when reminiscing about the diverged woods. In addition to being able to apply Freudian concepts to the two poems, Hinrichsen also applies the concept of controlled spaces in Frost s poems. Many of Frost s poems are
Graves 12 constructed in ways that are carefully scaled and emphasize boundaries. While The Road Not Taken takes place in the middle of nature, there are clear boundaries in the woods. The trees themselves form boundaries around the two paths adding to the significance of the permanency and distinction between the two choices. Home Burial has distinct walls and frames as the poem occurs within a house. Walls and boundaries in Frost s poems signify the trapped emotions present for the characters. Until the walls are removed, there cannot be emotional progression or healing for the poems characters. Just like his poems, Frost was a deceptively ironic poet. He was able to create complex poetry, constructed in ways that provided the reader with multifaceted interpretations. By focusing on character development and content that emphasized nature and a rural lifestyle, Frost is able to create realistic and applicable poems to normal, everyday life. In The Road Not Taken and Home Burial Frost gives significance to grief and anxiety, two emotions that are difficult both to define and to portray. Through his detailed narratives, and ironic compilation of words and sentences, Frost is able to create reader-involved poems by encouraging the reader to be sensitive and aware of the complicated emotions present.
Graves 13 Works Cited Frost, Robert. "Home Burial." The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry. By Jahan Ramazani, Richard Ellmann, and Robert O'Clair. New York: W.W. Norton, 2003. 204-07. Print. Frost, Robert. "The Road Not Taken." The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry. By Jahan Ramazani, Richard Ellmann, and Robert O'Clair. New York: W.W. Norton, 2003. 209-10. Print. Gioia, Dana. "Robert Frost And The Modern Narrative." Virginia Quarterly Review 89.2 (2013): 185-193. Academic Search Complete. Web. 3 Nov. 2014. Hinrichsen, Lisa. "A Defensive Eye: Anxiety, Fear And Form In The Poetry Of Robert Frost." Journal Of Modern Literature 31.3 (2008): 44-57. Academic Search Complete. Web. 5 Nov. 2014. "Robert Frost." Bio. A&E Television Networks, 2014. Web. 11 Dec. 2014. Vujin, Bojana. "I Took The Road Less Travelled By: Self- Deception In Frost's And Eliot's Early Poetry." Annual Review Of The Faculty Of Philosophy / Godisnjak Filozofskog Fakulteta 36.1 (2011): 195-203. Academic Search Complete. Web. 5 Nov. 2014.