Robert Frost Poems: Final Flashcards
What is The Road Not Taken about?
Narrator has to choose either one decision or the other, but cannot have both
What is The Pasture about?
Mother comforting her child by saying she won’t be gone too long; signifies motherhood, protection
What is Mowing about?
Seizing the pleasure of hard work, rather than dreaming about rewards or lesser hours as a result of hard labor
What is Mending Wall about?
Wall allows each neighbor contain their own individuality by separating them into their own properties; neighbors try mending a wall every year due to tradition, despite the narrator opposing it and his neighbor encouraging it
What is Home Burial about?
Death of a child and death of a marriage; miscommunication; wife believes her husband doesn’t care about their dead child
What is After Apple-Picking about?
Death; narrator wonders if he’s tired and sleepy, or nearly dying (unfilled barrel of apples may represent the unfulfilled achievements in his life)
What is Birches about?
Narrator wishes to be young and carefree again
What is Out Out about?
Death; characters are indifferent to boy’s death after he accidentally cuts his hand with a saw and bleeds out; critique of people leaving their childhoods behind too quickly
What is The Oven Bird about?
Passing of time; sense of sadness; bird sings about upcoming winter
What is Fire and Ice about?
Fire–represents passion and desire, ice–represents hatred; not mutually exclusive, can both destroy the world
What is Dust of Snow about?
Little things or actions can be significant and make a person happy
What is Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening about?
Narrator would rather relax and watch the snowfall but knows he has promises to keep; isolation, reluctant to go back to the real world
What is Need of Being Versed in Country Things about?
Contrasts between life and death; the house burns down, representing death; the barn is slowly decaying; nature will overcome, humanity will lose to nature
What is Neither Out Far nor in Deep about?
Instead of thinking about life, the narrator says, stop wasting your time and actually go live your life
What is Design about?
Narrator ponders why we are here, where did we come from, were we made this way, etc.
