poetry analysis paper exceprts (Desert Places) showing how to quote.notebook
March 26, 2013
Desert Places
Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
Sections from an analysis essay:
In a field I looked into going past,
My Thesis: In "Desert Places," Robert Frost uses images
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
of nature, its characterization, and its structure to But a few weeds and stubble showing last. communicate the theme of loneliness.
The woods around it have it ­ it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
First Body Paragraph:
I am too absent­spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares. loneliness. The poem's setting is night, the close of the The nature imagery in Frost's poem illustrates day when all activity ceases. Beyond the feeling of And lonely as it is, that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less ­
loneliness induced by nighttime, the images of "Snow A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
falling. . . fast" (l. 1) add to the isolation of the earth WIth no expression, nothing to express. from sight. "A few weeds and stubble showing" (l. 4) They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
signify futile signs of life. Above the earth, the stars, Between stars ­ on stars where no human race is.
too, evoke a feeling of sullen loneliness. The "empty I have it in me so much nearer home
spaces / Between stars" (ll. 11­12) intensify an all­
To scare myself with my own desert places. encompassing atmosphere of solitude. No signs of life are Robert Frost
recorded in the imagery of this poem except for a single speaker, who is very much alone, although "nearer [to his] home" (l. 16).
Mar 19­3:48 PM
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