Date: Sat, 01 Nov 1997 23:41:14 -0800
From: "Thad Q. Alexander" <rattler-AT-inreach.net>
Subject: Re: PLC: Frost, Interpretation, and Death


Yes, I have always read this poem, and have be taught, that it dealt with
death. Suicide, in a sense, but I have never really read it as suicide, just
the seduction of death. To lay down in the downy flake, to rest, to find peace
in a tedious life where every minute is spent in the toil of daily sustenance
and survival. I mean, here is a guy working in the dead of winter. What is this
man doing that has the horse habitually stopping at every farm house. It is a
toil. A job.  The horse knows that this is not the routine to stop here, so, is
he a woodsman? A pot mender? The bottled water guy? Only the horse knows, but
what ever it is, it is labor. Labor that has the man mortally tired, it seems
anyways, and relief in the arms of winter is soothing. Life is a daily burden
for both the horse and the man, but the man can conceive death as relief, the
horse knows only the end of the day. This is what I have been told and what I
perceive, but I don't see it as suicide, but a long, knarled road that has been
covered by this laborer and his horse for so very long, and it is the man's
task upon this road that allows that individual to exist another day, only to
toil over it again come morning. Existence, and what ever job it is that has
the man tending too, day in and day out, are one and the same, and he is tired
and just wants to close up shop. It is oh so quite and peaceful, until the
horse shakes is bells to remind the man to keep to business.

And is not death a personal thing, the act of dying? He is stopped by some
woods, inbetween farm houses, and the owner is in town so it is private and no
one will see him if he just lays down in the downy flake to watch is fill up
with snow. Painless and quiet, like sleep, and no one to witness. Even the
owner is of a vague identity, impersonal,  further distancing this private,
personal need of mortal sleep by the man. Dying is a very personal thing for
the man, here it seems so natural during the time of natures own dying.

The meter of the poem is tedious and rythmic like the beating of time, or the
rhythm of work. Is this right? I feel a steady trudge of step and step like on
a tread mill, over and over again.

Well, I guess on approach to the seduction of death, would be to look at
symbolism. Perhaps
archetypes such as winter, sleep, darkness, and the darkest evening of the
year, which would mean the dead of winter. Symbolically there is much to read
within the poem that can relate to death and dying. There is the metaphoric
lines at the end of the poem that ties in sleep, death with the toil of
continuing in existence, as well do others, as to sleep and dying. But here I
wish to stop, for I would have to ask you Paul, from what source have you read
other wise about this interpretation. I would love to read it, especially if it
is from Frost himself, for we can rip this poem apart on this interpretation on
the suduction death.

I hope I have not missed used any terminology's or posted an un-clear thought
in my post, it is late and I'm really not all that great in critiquing (sp?)
literature, but I'm learning.

Can't wait to hear from others.
Thad



Paul Smith wrote:

> I was surprised to read that Robert Frost said that "Stopping by Woods on a
> Snowy Evening" was about nothing more than stopping by woods on a snowy
> evening.  I have always been told, and accepted it as fact, that Frost was
> writing metaphorically about the seduction of death.
>
> I wonder if some may want to comment on this as I try to gather what Frost
> may have meant and what implications this has for my reading of this and
> other poems.
>
> Best,
> Paul
> -----
> Paul E. Smith
> smithpe-AT-flash.net
>
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--
Thad Q. Alexander
(rattler-AT-inreach.net)
OCC Undergraduate
Long Beach, CA.
USA
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it may be the wreck of his whole damn life
and one is as good as the other.
     ----Ernest Hemingway




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