Robert Frost is considered one of the "most popular American poets of his time.
the Pulitzer Prize for poetry four times. Congress also voted him a gold medal, in.
"recognition of his poetry, which has enriched the culture of the United States and the.
philosophy of the world" (Costello 543). The poem "Birches" was first published in 1915.
(Thomason 18). In Robert Frost's "Birches," the theme of reality vs. imagination is.
discovered through images of bent birches, symbolism of a boy swinging the trees, and the.
tone of words used.
The conflict of reality vs. imagination is explored through images of bent birches. Reality.
is depicted as birches bending and cracking after a freezing rain from the ice that was left.
behind. Frost let's the reader know that this is reality in lines 3-4: "I like to think some.
boy's been swinging them. But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay." He tells the.
reader the real reason of what bent the birches in line 5 when he states "Ice-storms do.
that." In the next six lines, Erica Smith notes, "we are inclined to view the ice storm.
negatively because Frost has used it to refute his hoped-for explanation in line three".
(Smith 20). A couple of lines later Frost gives us an insight into how reality is:.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load.
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed.
So low for long, they never right themselves.
The birches are dragged to the floor and they don't break. The situation is that after they.
are kept down for a long time they can never be straight again. They are permanently.
stuck in this "bowed" position.
We can compare these three lines to our lives because reality is that although we have.
problems we don't "break" or fall apart every time a problem arises. There is a point in.
lines fifteen and sixteen because when we have a huge problem that makes a big impact in.
our lives we "never right" ourselves. In other words, that problem is always in the back of.