Birches By Robert Frost Essay Examples

“Birches” is one of Frost’s most well-known poems. It is fairly typical of his work in many ways, though is substantially longer than other examples. Through an intelligent use of imagery, symbolism and metaphor, Frost successfully conveys an attractive, memorable poem with subtle themes.
Robert Frost provides an excellent example of a poet who experienced a long career, going from strength to strength. Accessible and down-to-earth, his work still continues to be popular today. Most readers can relate to his work as he focusses so accurately on human experience; his themes have not aged over the years and show no sign of aging in the future. Frost was an American poet who was respected for his portrayals of country life in New England, his grasp of conversational language, and his accurate poetry depicting commonplace people in ordinary positions.
Nature's playful characteristic prevails in “Birches,” where a harsh blizzard is remembered as an occurrences of unforgettable splendour. A man is wandering among the forest, watching top of the tree line. He witnesses some trees which are moving in the breeze and he begins to let his imagination run free and his thoughts dwell on the trees. He considers how the ice which encases the trees would crack when the branches bow. Then he ponders on how more weighty ice and snow could cause the frailer trees to bow as far as the ground. He then starts to envisage a boy climbing to the top of a branch and bending it as low as possible so that he can drop to the ground safely. The narrator of the poem recalls that he did this same thing when he was a young boy, and he muses that he would like to be able to climb trees as an adult, when he feels confined. This memory leads him to ponder that life, in fact, is not confining, as his childlike imagination can release him whenever he needs it to.
Frost writes “The Birches” in blank verse. Therefore, there is no rhyming scheme, but it does roughly adhere to an iambic pentameter writing structure. The poet tackles his subject matter with an array of similes and metaphors, adding another dimension to the already vivid and compelling imagery. Frost, like many poets, likes to explore differences concerning appearances and evident facts. What is assumed a fact can be used as a starting point for imaging how circumstances could be altered. There are many examples of this happening in “Birches.” In line 9, for example, the narrator refers to the ice on the trees as enamel. Typically, enamel denotes to the glossy covering on ceramic works. Ceramics are thought of as art, but it is arguable that trees are not. Frost has depicted an attractive image of the trees, but then the picture “cracks and crazes.” The scientific actuality of the natural elements has fragmented the art. Another example is in lines 10 and 11, in which the narrator likens the ice to crystal shells and enriches the impression with descriptive language. Ice which is "shattering and avalanching" is an intense vision to conceive. In line 12, the metaphor of breaking ice as shattering crystal is theoretically linked with broken glass, as the two pictures are so alike. The necessity of removing the piles of glass changes the metaphor into an extended metaphor by inserting additional metaphors to the initial one. In lines 19-20, the damaged trees are likened to girls drying their hair in the sunshine. This simile illustrates how the imagination can take the voice of the poem, and indeed the reader, away from normal physical life.
The boy who Frost imagines climbing the tree is an important symbol within the poem. Contrasting with the ice-storm that has left its marks, the boy exists only in the narrator’s imagination when he conjures him as a previous form of himself, when he was a child. The reader learns that the boy embodies the particular period in the narrator’s life that was occupied with modest fun, escapades in nature, and playful times. The boy is the Romantic variety of the narrator’s longing to communicate with nature. In lines 23-27, the made-up boy exists in a “pastoral” world, implying that he is strongly linked with animals and spends much of his time contentedly frolicking in the natural world. The boy is additionally a metaphor for the tough, American person. He has ventured into the territory that belongs to all Americans, and defeats whatever needs defeating. Importantly, lines 33-40 inform the reader that the boy acquires restraint and compassion towards the natural world. His conquering of nature does not damage or change it.
The reader is instilled with the impression that the speaker is a man in later life who is knowledgeable and reflective. He was born and brought up prior to 1900, and the globe as a whole is shifting. Nevertheless, he seems to reside in a part of America that is not a great deal changed from how it was a century in the past. A good example of how the reader is shown this, is that baseball grew in popularity in the Civil War and, interestingly, the imagined boy in the poem does not know how to play it.
The setting of “The Birches” is not given away explicitly. However, it is possible to roughly surmise where it is based. The narrative occurs in chilly New England and the snow is nearly knee deep. The narrator could be in Amherst, Massachusetts but could just as easily be in a different snow-filled location with a low temperature.
Youth is a major theme in “Birches.” Similarly to death, youth is a frequent framework for various poems by Frost. The narrator of “Birches” does not actually meet a boy or even see one. Like many imaginary children in poems, this one appears to have his own guidelines and insight that he can hand on to the narrator. He is prepared for ventures in nature and embodies the animalistic, natural form of humans that stays worthy and ethical despite no adult being present to guide him.
“Birches” is a memorable poem and an accurate representation of Frost’s work more generally. The poet’s talent of using vivid imagery, metaphor and symbolism has created a thoughtful poem that most readers are likely to relate to. As with much of his work, this ability to communicate with his readers is perhaps what has made his poems so accessible and successful among a wide audience. His chosen themes of youth and nostalgia are certainly not new or unique. However, the manner in which he has portrayed them certainly is.