4 july 2014

Interpretation of 'The Woodpile' by Robert Frost

Frozen = lifeless, death, colorless, empty.
Swamp = a low lying land seasonally flooded and has woody trees.
Gray =  colorless, old, lifeless, decaying.
A small bird = personification of nature.
The uniformly cut pile of wood = symbol of industrialism, charmless and dead uniformity of machine.
 
The speaker here walks into the middle of wilderness. The nature is dead here. Hard snow is preventing his advance with every step, as if nature does not want another man's footstep on her breast. The day is colorless and a sense of lifelessness prevails in the air. It is very sad and melancholy environment where the speaker strolls alone. But the walk is not pleasant and the speaker wants to turn back without anymore advances.
 
The nature seems to act indifferent toward human. She makes her so, so that humans do not find her easy to access. When a man does not give you a name it means he does not create any attachment with you. The same way the speaker finds it difficult to name the place he is in so that he can mark and later say that he was in such and such places in the nature. The speaker names it as ' far from home' which indicates that in the middle of nature the speaker feels that his existence is not wanted here and a sense of alienation or loneliness grasps him and he feels homesick. This is just a place which is not his home.
 
The nature comes to life in the shape of a small bird. The over cautiousness of the bird shows the attitude of nature toward human. In the words of poet, we understand that the benevolent mother nature is changing. Now that she has lived with human for so many thousands of years, she knows humans never come to her if they do not have something to gain in return for their own need. Mother nature can no longer act so friendly with humans because they are the cause that she is dying. Her cautiousness has made her withdraw from interacting with humans with kindness and this has created a distance between nature and humans.
 
The speaker brings in the woodpile. It seems to have been cut in a planned way and they all have definite shapes and sizes. They were cut to be used by human. 
 
Humans are always attracted to unnatural mechanical uniformity as a result the speaker forgets about the bird or the nature herself in the middle of the walk when he comes across the woodpile. The woodpile is symbol of mechanical excess or waste of industrialism. The woods were cut in such a beautiful shape that it could have used at any moment by anyone, but they seem the have been abandoned for many years by someone.
 
The speaker here again uses the motif 'grey'. He describes in what sad and decaying condition a part of mother nature is. It seemed too melancholy and lonely. The woodpile is abandoned. This shows how nature is abandoned by humans once her use is done. Humans do not pay any attention to mother nature's health. Slowly she is dying and decaying in the middle of this snow desert, in a place with no name and no one to care for.
 
 




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