Boundaries and Barriers in Frost’s Poem

Paper no: E-C- 303- American Literature

Topic: Boundaries and Barriers in Frost’s Poem

Name: Gohil Hetalba

Roll No: 5

Class: M.A, Sem-1

Submitted To:

Dr.Dilip Barad

Department of English

Bhavnagar University

Bhavnagar

      

ROBERT FROST

Robert Lee Frost was born in March 26, 1874 and died in January 29, 1963 .Hews an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech.^[1] His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and philosophical themes. A popular and often-quoted poet, Frost was honored frequently during his lifetime, receiving four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry

     Frost continued to write, but he was unsuccessful at publishing his work. In England, frost achieved his first literary success. This book of poems a boy’s WILL was printed by first English publisher that frost approached. The work established frost as an author and was representative of his lifelong poetic style.

      Frost’s poetry reflect how people interact with their environment and through he saw the beauty of nature, he also saw its potential dangers.

      Frost’s 1923 volume New Hampshire earned him the first of four Pulitzer Prize that he would win over the next 20 years .He then wrote two plays in blank verse. The first “A MASQUE OF REASON” and his next two collection “A FURTHER RANGE” “A WITNESS TREE”

Boundaries and Barrier’s in Frost’s Poetry.

MAN: HIS SOLITARINESS

 Robert frost has written on every subject in his work but alienation and isolation, both emotion and physical are major themes of  his poetry .He was a great poet of boundaries and barriers which divide men from men and come in the way of communication and as a result in  lack of solitaries who are lonely and isolated from other man ,but frost pictures mime as also alone and solitary in an impersonal and unfeeling environment.

There are Five Kinds of barriers and Boundaries.

1) Natural barrier.

2) Man and Natural World.

3) Otherness of Nature.

4) Isolation from God.

1) Natural Barrier:-

                 First, there is the great natural barrier the void space which separates man from the stars. Man foolishly tries to bridge this gap but all his afford in this respect are no more. By these efforts, he feels his own littleness. As he tells us in the “lessons for to-day “the contemplation of the ghost height of the sky has a belittling effect on man and  is overwhelmed by terrifying sense of his own solitariness in this universe.

            In  the poem entitle stars, the poet tells us how man gets attracted by nature only to be disillusioned do not lend any glory or state to the gazer. Rather, they produce a note of disenchantment.

      In another poem, we find how clever human plans to establish relationship with nature are thwarted. The protagonist of the star –splitter, purchases a telescope with the insurance money that he gets by burning his house down. He gazes at the stars but can not escape the question that raises its ugly head towards the end.

Nature’s Wilderness

     Secondly, there are the barrier, between man and the immediate natural world, the barren and desert places. Which man must conquer, reclaim and cuilivate.He must constantly wages a war against such wilderness, if he is to survive in an environment which seems hostile to him, which at least, is not meant for him and in which he is an alien.

      There are those who accept challenge and go down in defeat. The evidence of such failure. The woman in A SERVANT to servants has in caring for the house while the men are away and the emptiness of the world has overcome her. There is other on the border line of tragic failure. The hill wife, though not out of her mind, still has a fear of her to return to it .When she comes back, she has to reconquer it.

       Courage is needed to reclaim at home .The preacher in the long poem snow insists on going into the heart of the  blizzard when he  could remain overnight with  no inconvenience to them or himself .But he must go and conquer the blizzard.

The Otherness of Nature

      There is no harmony between man and nature but the nature is not on good terms with the humanbeings.Man’s physical existence itself is a barren which divides man from the soul on spirit of barriers between man and nature. Frost believes that a wide gulf separates man and nature, spirit and matter. In the number of poems, he stresses the “OTHERNESS” and indifference to expect any sympathy from   the spirit of soul which moves or governs the world.

 Individual man and the forces of nature are two different principle and the boundaries which separates them must be respected. These boundaries are insisted upon.In”TWO LOOK AT TWO”, the man and the woman do feel that there is an affinity between themselves and the buck and the doe done that stare back at them. But such moments are rare .In the poem “The Mending Wall”, he discusses that there is the man-made fences of “BAREBD WIRE BINDING “which separates human nature from deer nature.

Emotional and Social Isolation

     There are barriers which separate man from man. Such barriers come in the way of social communication and lack of communication leads to social alienation and emotional isolation and loneliness

Isolation from God. 

     Man’s reason and intellect is barrier that has alienated him from god, his own maker. There is a lack belief and that is the is the reason is enemy of belief.

Conclusion

      Frost believes in “vasudev kutumbkum”-freedom of will but not without giving due respect to others freedom so he said “fences makes good neighbors”