"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" Robert Frost's poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is an excellent example of one of his darker pieces of writing. ... Hence, the woods seem to represent him: dark and mysterious, the end of life there (his suicidal thoughts), and the filling up with snow -- frigid weather represents the coldness inside of himself. ... In the third stanza two options are presented using the snow to symbolize his death and reality by the shaking of the harness and bells. ... The repetition of the last line is to signify the want for "sleep" and in this case...

• Word Count: 914
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

In this poem, even light is oppressive – the contrast between light and dark is shown to be quite close to the contrast between life and meaning. Through her use of descriptive imagery, syntax and form, Emily Dickinson takes a short poem and manages to eke a tremendous amount of meaning out of it, likening light to the reminder that death will be upon us eventually. ... The specter of death looms over her, especially as something that robs life of meaning; the "seal of despair" is that permanent understanding that everyone will die someday (line 10). In this way, Dickinson tr...

• Word Count: 562
• Approx Pages: 2
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

A well-known example is his work in The Draft Horse: a narrative poem that at a first glance, is simply about a random act of violence where two people travelling through "a pitch-dark limitless grove" (4) are suddenly approached by an unknown man who "came out of the trees took our horse by the head [and] deliberately stabbed him dead.... In the way the poems' mannerism is phrased, it could be said that Frost wanted to show how death is meaningless, or how it is inevitable no matter what you do in life. The symbolism that can be taken from the meaning of the poem is by...

• Word Count: 943
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate