Poem Analysis: Robert Frost's Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

The poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost takes readers through a speaker’s travel in the woods. The speaker pauses their travel and stops to take a brief look at their location and eventually becomes pleased with the satisfaction of leisure compared to their sense of reality. The primary message of the poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” pertains to focusing on the commitment rather than the pleasure that many individuals come upon in their lifetime in order to stay on track of their intended goals. Robert Frost uses a normal stop in the woods to convey a common moral through the speakers inside thoughts towards their situation and/or experiences; in which many individuals should intend to remain focus on their intended path first, and their pleasures/desires later.

Robert Frost uses imagery as it helps add to the overall message of the poem as readers are able to sense/feel the speaker’s emotions mentally through these descriptive elements. Imagery is first used in the poem to describe their location as readers are able to mentally place themselves within the speaker’s perspective as they take us through their triumph. Stanza 1 perfectly fits the description of imagery, “Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here, to watch his woods fill up with snow.” This specific stanza shows Frost placing imagery near the beginning of the essay as a way to place readers within the story in a sense to grasp the overall message that Frost wanted to convey.

Robert Frost used personification as it helps add to the overall message of the poem that the beauty of the speaker’s surroundings satisfied them, but their reality resonated within them as well. The admiration of beauty is conveyed through human-like qualities and Frost does this primarily with the speaker’s horse. “My little horse must think it queer, to stop without a farmhouse near.” (Lines 5 and 6) This specific citation in the poem is what Frost uses to input personification by giving the horse this sense of curiosity of why the horse and the speaker were in an odd location. These qualities are what results in readers maintaining focus towards the story and being able to dig deeper towards the overall message that is intended to be conveyed.

The rhyme scheme and repetition of the poem supports the overall message as each stanza contains rhyme and the repetition at the end of the poem provides emphasis. The last stanza states, “The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep”. Rhyme contributes towards the overall message as it interests the reader and enables the reader to dig deeper each time rhyming is emphasized throughout the entire poem. If the poem didn’t contain rhyme, the poem would primarily lose what hooks readers onto the poem. Secondly, Frost’s small addition of repetition added to the overall message. Repetition emphasized that although the pleasing landscape of nature interested the speaker, they had to maintain on task as they were committed towards what their reality had offered and them being distracted would drive them away from their goal.

Robert Frost uses a specific structure as a way to convey the common moral of the struggles of commitment vs. pleasure in the poem. Structure is used as the poem focuses more on the speaker’s first-person point of view through setting and the speaker themselves allowing readers to relate towards the poem. The poem starts once the speaker pauses in the woods in the evening and further flows into the speaker’s admirations. Once the speaker goes into deep admiration the speaker then snaps back into reality. This particular structure of the poem flows into something similar as a first-person narrative. Readers learn about the character’s situation and the overall message Frost intends to convey due to this particular “story-telling” structure.

In conclusion, Frost’s common moral of commitment vs. pleasure in the poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” is conveyed by several literary devices implied in the poem by Robert Frost. Frost’s use of imagery, personification, rhyme, repetition, and structure is what creates this common moral Frost wants to push towards the reader as a form of motivation. These literary devices allow the readers to resonate and understand the poem’s underlying realities of leisure and responsibility being a choice many individuals have to undergo through their lifetime.