Robert Frost and the Theme of Alienation Anonymous 12th Grade

Robert Frost has portrayed alienation as a theme in several of his poems resulting from another factor in the narrator's life, such as isolating oneself as a conscious choice made with the aim of withdrawing from a harsh reality. He does this in poems such as Birches and Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (Stopping by Woods) mainly through the use of trees as a lineation of borders, but also through the manipulation of natural elements, such as human reactions in heightened emotional states.

Frost’s poetry can be compared to the literary movement of the 1800’s, Romanticism, which commonly highlights the remarkable traits of the social outcast. Being separated from a community grants a person the ability to notice the natural world with admiration. Such a calm and rewarding possible way of life would certainly seem attractive than one filled with misery and suffering, which seems to be the case in Stopping by Woods as it is clear the narrator is unhappy and yearns for the ability to leave everything behind and to be saved by the divine. We deduce, due to the dark and confused nature of initial descriptions that the poem may end with the death of the speaker. The repetition of “And miles to go before I sleep”, demonstrates the...