Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening Analysis

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The woods—an area of land that is covered with growing trees—are often seen as a place where people can enjoy a peaceful setting. The main reason for this universal attraction to the wilderness is due to the will to escape society—an organized group of persons associated together as members of a community . In “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy EveningRobert Frost uses the rhythm, the pattern of the poem and the lexical field to illustrate the division between staying in the woods, an ideal place, and their daily obligations dictated by the society, showing that the narrator is subject to the time passing by.
The lexical field shows a division between two worlds: firstly, the familiar pictured by the society, and secondly the unknown represented by the woods. These two worlds are on the edge of each other. On the one hand, words like “house” (l. 3), “village” (l. 3) and “farmhouse” (l.6) clearly refers to civilization. “Horse” (l. 5) can also be included in this lexical field because it has been domesticated to serve human needs. On the other hand, “woods” (l.7+13) and “frozen lake” (l.7) indicate an obscure and unexplored place. The natural setting of the woods serves as a symbolic separation between the narrator’s ideal world and human society.
Although the landscape seems hostile, the way Frost combines the phenomena occurring in the woods with specific adjectives make the environment more attractive. For instance, “The only other sound’s the sweep / Of easy wind and