Poetry Research Project: Robert Frost Do you know Robert Frost? Well Robert Frost was born on March 2, 1874 in Francisco, California. He had lived there in California with his father, mother, and sister for eleven years until William Prescott Junior his father died of tuberculosis. Robert frost then moved with his mother and sister into their grandparents’ house which was in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He had gone to high school and met his wife whose name was Elinor White he graduated in 1892 and also went to college for several months. His first poem was called “My Butterfly”. After that he got married, their marriage was on December 19, 1895. His first child was with his wife Elinor their first child’s name was Elliot in 1896 with 5 more children …show more content…
One way you could look at the poem is from his dreams while he is sleeping. When still awake in line 9 the speaker has a view of the world in the morning Frost compares it metaphorically to sleep or to something caught in his eyes. But in the poem it says “I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight” (poetry foundation) almost like the way you rub yourself out of your sleep for the day. Also in line 10 the blanket of ice over the water is described like a “plane of glass” (after apple picking) causes the speaker can look through it. Another one is a word “glass” which is an old word for mirror. In the line 15 the speaker confuses the time of the memory with the real time of him falling asleep, he is already starting to drift to sleep as the ice falls. In line 37 the word “trouble” is very confusing, but it shows us that it is of his disturbing dreams, even though apples’ falling really isn’t that …show more content…
He also uses symbols from the Bible. In the lines 1 and 2 the picture that Robert Frost uses is of a ladder pointing toward heaven which alludes us to the story of Jacobs’s Ladder in the Book of Genesis from the Bible. The story in the Bible is when Jacob was escaping from his jealous brother Esau, Jacob dreamt of a ladder going up to heaven which also had angels climbing it. When he got up to the top, God was at the top of the ladder. Then God had told Jacob that “Jacob and his children would be blessed.” Also in line 13 the narrator himself is thinking about apples falling because he has been trying not to drop any apples after working hard all day. But then between the falling of all the fruit seems to also refer to the Biblical Fall, when Adam and Eve tasted the forbidden and were excluded from the Garden of Eden. Thirdly line 21-22 we know that he is beginning to dream, which makes the association to the story of Jacob’s ladder even clearer. Lines 31 through 36 the apples that fell and hit the earth are symbols of sin and earthly corruption. They are treated “as no worth,” (after apple picking) similar to how Adam and Eve were treated after they metaphorically “fell to earth” by tasting the forbidden fruit. It is important to note from Frost that he has sympathy for the corrupted apples, as if they represented all of