Into The Wild And The Road Not Taken Analysis

Discovery can encompass the experience of unearthing something that was previously known or uncovering something that was lost, hidden or forgotten. Discovering something new or rediscovering something that was hidden can lead to a transformation of an individual both in terms of ideals and perspectives. The concept of discovery is explored deeply in Robert Frost's poems ‘The Tuft of Flowers and ‘After Apple Picking’. Likewise the Sean Penn directed motion picture ‘Into the Wild’ and the 1999 film ‘The Green Mile’ both further explore the many types of discoveries with a particular emphasis on self discovery. All these texts critically engage with the theme of discovery and use a wide variety of visual and language techniques to illustrate the importance of discovery

The texts use a wide range of techniques to illustrate the importance of death in the texts.

Robert Frost’s poem ‘The tuft of flowers’ and the Sean Penn directed film ‘Into the Wild’ both have nature as the central theme of their texts. In both texts the persona feels a strong sense of alienation from modern day society and finds their true identity through nature. Discoveries through nature in the texts lead the persona to new understandings and renewed perceptions of themselves and others. Frost and Penn both use nature as an extended metaphor and they symbolise how something small and insignificant in the eyes of the many can be crucially important to some. Frost highlights the importance of nature throughout the poem ‘Tuft of Flowers’ by using the technique of imagery. Imagery highlights the persona’s appreciation of nature and how he connects on a spiritual level to the unknown mower’s ideals. One example of imagery in ‘The Tuft of Flowers’ comes in the fourth stanza of the poem ‘A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.’ The hidden discovery in this passage is the spiritual connection between the persona and the mower.