Come In Explication Essay, Research Paper
Come In by Robert Frost
Robert Frost is a well known American poet often associated with beautiful
scenes from the New England area. However, the deeper meanings of his poems is often
overlooked by their reader, many critics use words such as loneliness, anguish and
frustration to describe some of Frost s famous poems. In the poem Come In , Frost tells
about the change from day to night and makes a parallel statement about stepping over the
edge of life into death. The poem is filled with images of darkness, which becomes a
symbol of death, and music from songbirds, which help to build a chaotic scene. The
speaker seems to have a feeling of anxiety and a certain sense of awe toward the situation
taking place in the poem. These feelings help display the poems overall theme that nature
and life itself has a mysteriousness to it that should not be taken lightly.
In the first stanza the speaker immediately makes reference to the boarder between
light and dark. The edge of the woods is a boarder between the nighttime of the inside
and the light of the outside as the speaker states in lines 3 and 4. The Thrush music (line
2) sets a mysterious scene from the very beginning. The man standing at the edge of the
woods notices the music coming from the woods and it grabs his attention as is evidenced
by the word hark (2). The darkness on the inside of the woods gives the music a sense
of mystery since the man cannot be sure where the music is actually coming from or what
is going on inside the woods. The dusk outside (3) contrasting with the darkness on the
inside paints an eerie image that aids the mysterious nature of this setting. The rhyme used
in lines 2 and 4 draws attention to the two strongest words in the opening stanza, hark
and dark. The word dark is perhaps the most important because it is used so often later
in the poem and has the most meaning upon examination.
The second stanza continues to illustrate the darkness and mystery of the woods.
The woods are said to be Too dark (5), even for a bird to move, this shows an extreme
and eerie darkness which seems to suggest an absence of life. An absence of life
immediately brings connotations of death, which shows the relation between darkness and
death for the first time in the poem. The last line howev
(8) which contrasts the image previously set and attributes to the mysteriousness that
nature has. In the third stanza death is finally used directly to describe the absence of
light. Total darkness has now taken over the both inside and outside of the woods. The
light is first stated to have died, but it is later said to Still lived for one song more. (11)
The personification displayed here helps to show the connection between nature and life,
and the mystery surrounding the two. It also shows how the light is actually representing
life and death itself. The contradiction stated in this stanza shows how chaotic nature can
be. This disorder and chaos help to convey the feeling of anxiety that the man must
certainly be feeling.
In the fourth stanza the man is finally tempted to go into the darkness of the
woods.. The man can still hear the music in the pillared dark (13) of the woods. The
music is calling the man in the woods, as is metaphorically stated in lines 14-16, Almost
like a call to come in (15). The woods are described as dark and lament (16), which
make them seem lifeless and mysterious. The man finally states his intentions of that night
during the final stanza. The speaker states that he was out for stars, (17) Here the man
is showing his defiance about going into the woods that are symbolizing death. He
decides that he will accept the conditions of his own life and continue to live with nature
under the stars. He indeed respects the woods and all of nature while at the same time
having some wonder and even fear toward what he does not know. This is clearly
showing the tone of awe that the man is feeling.
Robert Frost s poems are filled with primarily simplistic language. This simplistic
language still manages to invoke deep thought into the poems meanings. Frost s
descriptions of the natural world often give beautiful imagery but are also intended to
provoke thought into their symbolic meanings. In the poem Come In, Robert Frost
accomplishes this with his comparison of darkness and death. Using many images Frost
makes the reader aware of the awe and anxiety that he feels towards nature. Frost begins
to understand the power of nature and how it can take your life, he is able to resist the
darkness because he was simply out for the stars: (17).