Compare and Contrast Robert Frost’s
Robert Frost and Eudora Welty both writers, lived thirty years apart; whereas Frost writes poetry and Welty writes novel and short story, a comparison and contrast of these two works will show that the setting of their writings is nature.
The two works, “The Road not Taken”, and “A Worn Path,“ begin with a description of nature, and they are set apart by one season. Frost’s poem begins: “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,” suggesting that it is fall. There are several yellow flowers that bloom in spring, however, it could not have been spring, since the poet distinctly says “yellow woods.” ”In leaves no step had trodden black.” is also proof that it is fall; the only time of year when leaves pile up. No one would bother to comment on a few leaves that have not been walked on, it probably would not even be noticed, but a mound of leaves in fall will be surely noticed. It is argued that Frost uses this poem to express a conflicting time in his life, if that were the case, judging by the way the poem ends, that conflict was never resolved; because at the end of the poems one realizes that the roads are the same.
In Welty’s work there is no guessing or deduction, she begins the first line “It was December” the reader immediately feels the cold that usually accompany a sunlit day in winter. Frost writes in the first person and does not spend much time talking about his character; whereas Welty writes in the third person and is very detailed. There is no indecision in Welty’s work, she does have the luxury of choosing which road to travel. The road she is taking is her only option, her journey is tedious and full of hardship; she has been down this road many times before hence, the path is worn. Unlike Frost she needs to travel this path, it is the only one that will take her where she needs to go, her grandson’s life compels her to do so.
“The analogical landscape poem draws its force from the culturally ancient and pervasive idea of nature as allegorical book” (Lentricchi)
In “The Road not Taken,” the character in the poem is obviously making a decision that will affect the rest of his life; therefore it is safe for one to say that the traveler is at turning point in his life, and is not as old as Phoenix in Welty’s story. Phoenix did not choose her road, it is chosen for her. Whoever made the decision dooms her to life of destitution. Clearly she is in poor health with a visual impediment. As the story says she uses the umbrella as a cane and she could walk with her eyes close. This tells the reader that opening her eyes would not enhance her rituality much. . “The fact that she keeps persistently tapping the earth in front of her could only indicate one thing—that she was visually impaired. She may not have been completely blind, but she had to have been substantially impaired to have kept tapping her cane in a redundant manner” (Roberts, 1995, 196).
Even though Welty’s story keeps one in suspense for a while, wondering why such an old woman is taking this journey, perceptibly not well, and not properly dressed for the cold weather, the story does not mention a coat, and cotton is not a fabric for winter, the story is straight forward, except the one hint of irony as it describes he walk; “with the balance heaviness and lightness of a pendulum.”. Yet, it is not confusing as Frost’s poem. Immediately one may not notice the paradoxical interjection, it is place so slyly some readers may never perceive it. “Though as far as the passing there/ Had worn them really about the same.// Then took the other, as just as fair,/ In leaves no step has trodden black./”
Pricthard (1984); says it is noticeable that the speaker admits at the time of his choice, that there really is no difference between the two roads. They appear to be the same, none more trodden than the other. Choosing one instead of the other was an impulsive act, “impossible to speak about any more clearly than to say that the road taken had ‘perhaps the better claim.”’ In the final stanza, there is a change in tense, it changes to the future, the story is different, it will be told "with a sigh," and “‘ages and ages hence.’ At that imagined time and unspecified place, the voice will have nobly simplified and exalted the whole impulsive matter into a deliberate one of taking the ’less traveled’ road..”
Frank Lentricchia also thinks that Frost was sneaky as he tried to satisfy the Atlantic and its audience, he remained as closely as he could to give them the type of literature they required and would accept.. Consequently, he used his poetic license to deliver poetry fit for the “mode of poetic production, the mass flow of the magazine.” At the same time he more than undermined a little “what that mode facilitates in the realm of American poetic and political ideals.” For a balanced decision to be made, two different roads are needed; that way the character is able to make a valid choice. The character should not be placed in a no win or a win, win, situation. The readers want to see an authentic struggle, and cheer their hero for his shrewd judgment. In the end there was no choice, no glory, either road would have been the right road (1995, 71).
Although Frost maintains the same metric foot throughout the poem and an irregular rhyming scheme, the fact is not relevant since those elements are not applied to stories. Nonetheless, in Welty’s story, she brings her story to life with the use of figurative language, unlike Frost who throw “a curve ball” and subtly slipped irony into his poem, and kept it to the end.. Welty’s story begins with a metaphor, “frozen day.” The description of Phoenix is tangible:
Her skin has a pattern all its own of numberless branching
wrinkles and as though a whole little tree stood in the middle
of her forehead, but a golden color ran underneath, and the
two
knobs of her cheeks were illuminated by a yellow
burning under the dark .
Under the red rag her hair came down on her neck in the frailest of ringlets
Another form of figurative language that is used in this story is simile. Often times she compares one objects with another. “The cones dropped as light as feathers; all boarded shut like old women under a spell; the moss hung as while as lace.” Eudora’s work is noted to express the life she observed in rural Mississippi. Her graphic accounts are developed with the eyes of a photographer. In her biography, VandeKieft (1987) explains that Welty’s love for photography began when her father bought her a camera. The camera helped her to express herself through her writing. It is almost like she sees a new world as is capturing the beauty of nature.
The main similarity between Eudora Welty and Robert Frost is found in their writings. They share a love for nature, however, it is not nature that makes them alike, it is the wealth of personal experiences that they bring to their writing that makes them comparable. Frost literally spent time alone embracing nature, The character in Frost’s poem is everyone, Says Pritchard; “The analogical landscape poem draws its force from the culturally ancient and pervasive idea of nature as allegorical book, in its American poetic setting a book out of which to draw explicit lessons for the conduct of life.” . “The Road not Taken,” is a short five stanza poem, but it has become Frost’s most popular poem. All because decision making is a mantle that everyone at some point in his or her life must experience.
On the other hand Welty’s story brings to light the harsh living for Blacks in the South, it is almost a satire, exposing the hardship that the lower class endures. With Welty’s writing one sees, one hears, one feels, it is writing that evokes the emotions. One cannot help but feel sorry for Phoenix as she makes the trek she had made many time before. Her tenacity is dogged, and she will keep coming back until her strength fails her. She is evidently used to hardship, she wears it like armor, and she is proud. She only accepts charity just to make her grandson happy, she is unselfish.
The two works, one of Robert Frost and the other of Eudora Welty are masterfully crafted. Both writers write about what they know best. They write from their own personal experience’ and they both make nature the setting of their writing. Their writing is not isolated, through figurative language the reader experiences the plight of the characters.
Academic Library. 14 March 2012 www.academiclibrary.com/view/English/road_not_taken.htm
Lentricchia, Frank Modernist Quartet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995: 71-74.
Frost: A Literary Life Reconsidered. Copyright © 1984 by William Pritchard.
VandeKieft, Ruth M. "The Literary Career of Eudora Welty." Eudora Welty . Twayne
Publishers. 1987
Welty, Eudora. "A Worn Path." Writing About Literature.. 8th Edition. Edgar V Roberts
Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1995. 196
