A Roadside Stand

Continued

It is in the news that all these pitiful kin

Are to be bought out and mercifully gathered in
To live in villages, next to the theatre and the store,
Where they won’t have to think for themselves anymore,
While greedy good-doers, beneficent beasts of prey,
Swarm over their lives enforcing benefits
That are calculated to soothe them out of their wits,
And by teaching them how to sleep they sleep all day,
Destroy their sleeping at night the ancient way.

Meaning ... A new relocation plan for these poor villagers is in the offing. In the pretence of
giving them the comforts of urban life, these simple folks will be forcefully uprooted from
their land and made to live inside the urban limits, beside the theatres, and malls. No one
bothers to take their consent, nor to study, how disoriented the village folks will feel in their
new habitats. By sweat-talking the gullible rural folks, the land sharks will fleece them of their
ancestral lands, and condemn them to live in the urban centers. Such trickery will never be
called to account, and the villagers will painfully struggle to adjust to the new ways of earning
a living. Undoubtedly, the change will bring them misery. Their simple life style will be
destroyed, and in their new habitat, they will ‘lose sleep’, implying that life will become riddled
with difficulties. On the other hand, the manipulators and the wolves in the garb of
benefactors will enjoy their lives in greater luxury.

Sometimes I feel myself I can hardly bear

The thought of so much childish longing in vain,
The sadness that lurks near the open window there,
That waits all day in almost open prayer
For the squeal of brakes, the sound of a stopping car,
Of all the thousand selfish cars that pass,
Just one to inquire what a farmer’s prices are.
And one did stop, but only to plow up grass
In using the yard to back and turn around;
And another to ask the way to where it was bound;
And another to ask could they sell it a gallon of gas
They couldn’t (this crossly); they had none, didn’t it see?

Meaning … The poet feels distraught. He knows he is expecting something that this cruel
world can’t deliver. This resignation makes him angry and sad. The humble farmer looks on
expectantly at each and every passing cars hoping that they would stop and make some
purchases. However, his wait remains futile. The passengers in the cars seldom bother to stop
near the sack. Buying anything from such a poorly exhibited stall is below their dignity. The
humble farmer looks on vainly hoping that he could sell something at least to carry home a
little cash. At rare intervals, cars do stop, but it is either for asking some direction to the city,
or taking a turn in his backyard, or for filling gas. The farmer’s heart breaks when such visits,
which are few and far between, do not result in any tiny business for him. The attitude of the
wealthy folks leaves the poet exasperated.

No, in country money, the country scale of gain,

The requisite lift of spirit has never been found,
Or so the voice of the country seems to complain,
I can’t help owning the great relief it would be
To put these people at one stroke out of their pain.
And then next day as I come back into the sane,
I wonder how I should like you to come to me
And offer to put me gently out of my pain.

Meaning … The poet regrets that despite the enormous wealth of the country, and its vast
sources of earning, social welfare, and concern for the downtrodden in rural areas have never
been the national agenda. The conscience of the nation is muted and muffled towards the
citizens who barely scratch a living off their lands. The compassionate poet dreams that he
could, in one masterstroke, banish the sorrow and suffering of the toiling, and deprived
masses from the morass of poverty. But, when the magic spell would get over, hard realities
would bite. It would make the sagely poet sad again. He wants his readers to offer a helping
hand to overcome the shock.
———————————–.

A Roadside Stand by Robert Frost (poetic devices/figures of speech)

The use of personal pronoun shows poet’s involvement and draws reader’s concern.
‘didn’t it see’ -The use of ‘it’ for people indicates they are inhuman
Transferred epithet –1)polished traffic (the traffic is not polished, people are polished)
2)Selfish cars
Metaphor/ figurative speech-1) the flower of cities from sinking and withering faint;
2) Swarm over their lives
3) Teaching them to sleep they sleep all day
Oxymoron and Alliteration - Greedy good doers; beneficent beasts of prey
Personification:
 A roadside stand that too pathetically pled(also alliteration)
 Sadness that lurks near the open window there/ that waits all day
 Voice of country
 Questions and Answers..
Q1. The city folk who drove through the countryside hardly paid any heed to the
roadside stand or to the people who ran it. If at all they did, it was to complain. Which
lines bring this out? What was their complaint about?
ANSWER …The lines are, “At having the landscape marred with the artless paint
Of signs with the N turned wrong and S turned wrong”
The city folks find the shack a shabby insertion in the beautiful landscape of hills and
greenery. They are angry that the old signboard hangs showing the N-S direction wrong.

Q2. What was the plea of the folk who had put up the roadside stand?
ANSWER …The farmer who erected a ramshackle sales counter wanted to make a little
money by selling his berries and the juice. The extra earning could ameliorate his difficulties in
making both ends meet.

Q3. The government and other social service agencies appear to help the poor rural
people, but actually do them no good. Pick out the words and phrases that the poet
uses to show their double standards.
ANSWER …The words / phrases are ‘greedy do-gooders’, ‘beasts of prey’, ‘swarm over their
lives’, ‘soothe them out of their wits’, ‘teaching them how to sleep’ etc.

Q4. What is the ‘childish longing’ that the poet refers to? Why is it ‘vain’?
ANSWER …The poet imagines that he could banish the woes of the simple poor farmers and
other such deprived classes in one go, but this is only a dream. It can never come to fruition in
real life. This is why it is a ‘vain’ desire.

Q5. Which lines tell us about the insufferable pain that the poet feels at the thought of
the plight of the rural poor?
ANSWER …The lines are..
Sometimes I feel myself I can hardly bear
The thought of so much childish longing in vain,
The sadness that lurks near the open window there,
That waits all day in almost open prayer
For the squeal of brakes, the sound of a stopping car,
Of all the thousand selfish cars that pass,
Just one to inquire what a farmer’s prices are.

LONG QUESTIONS ….
1. Why is Frost so sad and indignant in this poem?
ANSWER … In his childhood days, and later in his adult life, Robert Frost had faced trials and
tribulations in no small measure. Poetry was not fetching him enough in his early days. To
make both ends meet, he had to take to farming, poultry etc. The hard times that he faced
scarred his mind and shaped his conscience. He became a humanist, and a pro-poor liberal
thinker.
This poem has glimpses of the ordeal he himself faced in raising some income from his farm.
In this poem, the object of pity is a humble farmer who grows berries and other fruits in his
farm, and wants to sell it to the motorists. The indifference of the wealthy travelers, and their
aloofness towards the farmer’s not-so-glitzy sales counter saddens the poet. The rich folks
race to and fro the city, come near the farmer’s stall, but seldom choose to come and buy
something. The farmer waits and waits craving the attention of the travelers, but he never
succeeds, although the fruit and juice he offers are so fresh and nourishing. The farmer’s
plight plunges Frost’s heart in grief.
The celebrated poet, the winner of wealthy America’s top literary wards, has no love for blind
urbanization that marches inexorably swallowing up farm lands. He loathes the avaricious real
estate barons and the city planners who, in the name of development, usurp the lands of
unsuspecting farmers. The rustic folks are simple and gullible. They are no match to the guile
and greed of the powerful land mafia who have the politicians at their side. The cleverly-
engineered, forced relocation of the rustic folks in urban environment appears so revolting to
the poet. ‘It’s human tragedy,’ laments the poet.
In conclusion, it can be said that Robert Frost was a compassionate, kindly person who railed
against the exploitation of the capitalist system under which he grew and flourished. Although
written more than a century ago, the same apathy to the plight of the toiler of the soil still
roils the modern day world. The same machinations of the land mafia he so forcefully derided
still rules the roost in almost all countries of the world. So sad, while millions read his poems
with relish, few shed a drop of tear for the toiling, deprived, and voiceless masses that the
poet passionately pleaded for.