Compare and Contrast Essay on Robert Frost's "Desert Places" and "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"

Introduction

Robert Frost carries our imagination to a quest across wintertime with "desert places" and "Stopping by Woods on a snowy evening." New England is a beautiful country and Frost coming from there, the beautiful scenery of these poems are a reflection of the place. These two poems have winter settings, yet they are distinct in tones. Desert Places has a feeling of depressing loneliness while Stopping by Woods has a sense of welcome solitude. The poems show the impact of settings on a person depending on how they have set their minds at that particular time. The poems are not as simple, but they are both made up of simple diction and stanzas.

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In the poem, "Desert Places," on a beautiful winter evening, a man, who is also the speaker, is traveling through the countryside. The man is surrounded by a deep feeling of loneliness and perceives the field that is covered by snow as an abandoned place. He says "a blanker whiteness of benighted snow," "with no expression, nothing to express." In this poem, blankness and whiteness are primal notions. While the whiteness acts to symbolize the empty and open spaces, the snow in the white blanket has covered every living thing. The blankness is a symbol of everything that the speaker feels. To the speaker, there is nothing else around apart from his lonely thoughts and the unfeeling snow. The speaker is also in refusal about his lone feeling. He does not care about a lot of things and is a little paranoid. When he says "they cannot scare me with their space" he means he does not need anyone else for no one cares about how he feels. The speaker has let loneliness and depression to crawl in his existence and has buried him like the snow on the mountain.

"Stopping by Woods" is a much happier poem as compared to the "Desert Places." It is all about stopping to enjoy life. The speaker in this poem is an engaged man with a lot of duties and some places to visit. He says "but I have promised to keep and miles to go before I sleep." He feels a little bit of regret since he wishes to stay a little longer and feel the special geographic scene, but then he remembers he has places to go. The poem is an expression of the joy of nature. "The Woods are lovely, dark and deep." The speaker is concerned about what society will think of him stepping out of nowhere, and his horse illustrates community. "My little horse must think it queer, to stop without a farmhouse near." He is almost guilty for admiring another person's woods. He says, "He will not see me stopping here, to watch his woods fill up the snow." His life is much better since he took a stop to breathe deeply and have a sense of what is significant, which are easy matters.

Conclusion

These two poems have the same settings which are calm, dark wintery evenings although they show distinct emotions. While "Desert Places" has a depressing and dark tone, "Stopping by Woods" is a happy poem that makes an individual wish for winter. They have some similarities as well. They both show two ends of similar emotion. Loneliness is depressing, but it is also a time when a person can gather their thoughts while winter is a solid season to reflect on and express solitude. While winter can cover everything and make them seem dead, it can also show purity by wiping clean the state, and it can also be a time of starting anew. Winter for some, is a time of tracing back, a time to sit down and stare at the hovering snow. In these poems, Frost draws upon his personal experiences when he lived in New England and converts them into beautiful poems.