The Beauty of Promises in Snowy Evening
Defining Humanity in Robert Frost's Poem Stopping by Woods
In “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, Robert Frost highlights two key and divergent aspects about being human, our capacity to appreciate beauty and our sense of promises. Both can add great value to life but have dangers as well. It may be our ability to experience both and to balance them that creates the greatest potential in life.
Beauty, Peace, Temptation
The beauty here is the silence, the solitary peace of the snow-filled woods at night. This contrasts with the daily rigors and stress of life during the day, the working day, filled with people and sound in the village where the snow soon gets trampled into dirty slush. While other animals have curiosity and at least some level of appreciation, they are not prone to the seduction of this particular beauty, serenity.
However, as desireable as this peace may be or seem, humans are also social and competitive creatures not made for complete peace. For people, the images of such complete peace coincide with death, a connection that mistakenly leads sometimes to suicide. Indeed, the speaker here is within a few ill-chosen steps of such an end. The reader knows that it’s quite cold not only because of the snow, but the “frozen lake”. Also, this is not merely any winter night but the “darkest evening of the year.”
The Dark Side
This could be simply a matter of clouds and no moon, which is a depth of darkness many haven’t seen in modern cities. It might also mark the winter solstice, which is the longest night of the year. However, in additional to scientific meanings, “darkest” could imply a psychological mood, a difficult time that makes the “lovely, dark, and deep” woods all the more attractive.
If so, the traveler is fortunate to have the horse, who is not prone to such reflection and is driven more by common sense, also called horse sense. For the horse, the cold is simply greater motivation to cover the miles to the warmth of home. For the traveler, the horse’s head-shake is a reminder of promises, which could be promises to himself, promises to others, or most likely both.
The Sustenance of Promises
Beauty and peace are wonderful things, generally quite individual experiences, and they provide much of what makes difficult times worth enduring. However, they can also be fleeting. Our promises are what binds people to each other, not so much in bondage as in communion. Sealed with a handshake or a kiss, a promise says that people are not alone. It is not only a sense of responsibility but an interdependence that humanity forms its own safety net for each individual.
A promise also creates a sense of time, a connection to the past and committment to the future, giving both a platform to stand upon and a purpose for crossing those miles ahead. Within that waits the peace needed, peace better than that found in the dark , snowy woods, no matter how beautiful those woods may be.
Peaceful, Snowy Woods
|
What do you think about this article?
More in Reading & Literature
Latest Articles