Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Explication of Robert Frost's "Bereft"



In Robert Frost’s poem Bereft, the speaker is hiding inside his home while a storm rages on outside. The storm knows the speaker is lonely and depressed. Throughout the poem, nature is personified as torturing the speaker and constantly reminding him of his sadness. The season is changing from summer to autumn and the narrator does not like that the leaves fall off the trees. He says “Leaves got up in a coil and hissed, blindly stuck my knee and missed” (9-10). The narrator uses a metaphor to describe how the wind picks up the leaves and makes them nearly hit the narrator. The narrator believes the leaves are purposely trying to hit him. This poem also has a lot of imagery, especially in the line “Looking down the hill to the frothy shore?” (6). This line makes the reader image looking down at the ocean and seeing the white froth on the shore. This evokes the idea that the narrator is contemplating suicide to relieve them of their sadness. The main idea of this poem is that the narrator feels isolated and lonely, shown through the lines “Word I was in my life along, word I had no one left but God” (15-16). These lines demonstrate that someone very close to the narrator has passed away.
            The idea of loneliness is also very apparent in King Lear. After being betrayed by Goneril and Regan, Lear has no one left to turn to. Right when Lear feels most alone, a massive storm begins. This storm further reminds Lear of his daughters’ betrayal. The storm outside reminds Lear of the struggle taking place within his own head, since he has nothing left and nowhere to go. Just like in the poem, nature is a constant reminder of the emotion that Lear wants to ignore. Lear also perceives nature to be working against him as an antagonist, just like how the narrator of the poem believes nature is the enemy.

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