English Literature

MTG

This year’s Junior Prizegiving saw fourth former Samuel Christie speak with eloquence and poise, leading the audience through his ‘dark and deep’ reading of Robert Frost’s seemingly innocent — but decidedly deceptive — ‘Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening’.

A Critical Appreciation of Robert Frost’s ‘Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening’

Samuel Christie, 4F

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’ is deviously written. It pretends to be an innocent poem focused on the observation of a serene forest in Winter, but hides a darker meaning: that the death wish – otherwise known as l’appel du vide – is ever present within our minds, and one must resist it to return to the productive sensibility of life. Robert Frost achieves this effect through the way he outlines the nature of the various elements: the irrationality of the woods; the pleasant, enchanting atmosphere of the evening; the deadly cold of winter and the snow; and the sense of responsibility and rationality that comes with the horse, the village, and returning there.

To begin with, the poet brings in a feeling of connection to the village – and hence responsibility – in stanza one:

Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow.

By emphasising the ownership of the land, and the fact that the owner is in the village (i.e. not ‘here’), Frost invokes a sense of urgency, and the need to return to various responsibilities. The first two lines rhyme; but this accord is broken by the third line, which starts a new idea: the speaker does not need to return to the village. ‘He will not see me stopping here’ almost shows that the speaker knows that his reluctance to return is wrong.

The rationality of the village is then carried through in the horse, which seems to represent a similar cause:

My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound’s the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake.

The horse shakes its harness bells, possibly a reference to divine intervention. It is clear that hesitation is not the logically correct choice, or even the morally correct choice, if even divine powers are against it. Also, the word ‘stop’ here makes the alternative to rationality seem still and calm. It supports the idea that the poem could be trying to express suicidal thoughts, or the still, non-productivity of procrastination.

Robert Frost, 1887-1963

Frost c.1910

In contrast with the logic of the horse and the village, the woods are portrayed to be irrational instead. They can be said to be a counterweight to the village, and society. Even though the woods are owned and they cannot be said to be wild, the owner is in the village, and so not there to manage and tame them. Possibly, then, the woods are feral and, while they are unmaintained, they ‘fill up with snow’. The poem emphasises the difference between the village – the good place – and the woods – the bad, irrational place which is ‘dark and deep’. The forest can even be said to be deadly. As it fills up with snow, it can be all too easy to fall asleep under the blanket of ‘downy’ flakes, on the ‘darkest evening of the year’.

However, it is clear from this poem that the woods are not all bad; at least, they don’t seem sinister to Frost. They are seen by the speaker as ‘lovely’:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

They are tempted by the woods to stay, and ‘watch [the] woods fill up with snow’. This is the temptation I’ve previously alluded to, l’appel du vide, which is taunting the speaker. There is a struggle in their mind, whether to stay and delight in the freedom and sleep that the forest promises, or to continue with life. Clearly, the pull towards death and relief is strong. The third stanza’s -ake rhyme is hard and sharp and possibly indicates the ‘ache’ of longing the speaker feels. It is interrupted by the softer -eep, which brings in the idea of the long sleep which has been brewing throughout the poem.

Towards the end of the poem, Frost signs off with a sense of duty, deciding to resist the temptation of the woods. This effect, of suddenly snapping back to reality, is brought about by the second line of the last stanza, which contrasts greatly with the first, as it suddenly switches the focus back to the village, and the speaker’s ‘promises to keep’. Interestingly, the repetition of ‘And miles to go before I sleep’, seems to signal to the reader that the poem is not all that it seems, emphasising that there is more meaning behind it than simply a pleasant evening ride in winter. This reinforces a sense of ‘sleep’ implying death, and validates the view that the poem describes Frost’s suicidal urges, or l’appel du vide. The speaker seems to reassure themselves here, repeating the line to calm themselves down after their mental struggle. For me, this is quite a moving ending, the affirmation causing the reader to realise quite how close to suicide the speaker actually was.

The poem is clearly not all that it seems at first. It appears as if Frost was trying to present the idea that everyone feels l’appel du vide, as the identity of the speaker is not revealed at all; and the orderly and calm nature of the poem makes it seem like a normal circumstance, meaning it could be anyone taking a ride through these woods.

It could also possibly be a message to anyone reading it to carry on with life, as the woods are represented as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a trap; the speaker has ‘miles to go’ before he sleeps, as also does the reader. ❚