1. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.

About the poet :

Robert Frost was a classical writer who started writing at a young age and
became very popular during his lifetime. His literary qualities and unique
expressions have added so much to the world of literature. Even during his
lifetime, Frost has had a significant influence on a diverse range of writers and
poets. He successfully brought into light the concept of soothing nature and its
role in man’s life. He expressed his ideas in his poems. His poems are very much
an inspiration to modern times to this day. Many modern poets attempt to imitate
his style, considering him a role model for writing prose and poetry.

About the poem :

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening is one of the most moving of
Frost’s lyrics. It moves us as unobtrusively as it conveys to us the profundity of
its thought. It has been analyzed, explicated and dissected in various ways. It is as
good as T. S. Eliot’s Waste Land. It is one of the best-known poems of the
twentieth century.
Undoubtedly it is highly inspiring poem. Introducing woods, snowy
evening, horse and sleep as symbols, the poet inspires the sense of duty in all
human beings. The dark woods symbolize the dark, impenetrable, unfathomable
mystery of life. Snow as usual symbolizes the cold destructive force called death.
The village is symbol of heaven and his friend symbolizes God. The horse is
symbolic of power and determination. Lake is symbolic of wishes and desires.
Frozen lake naturally symbolizes suppressed desires. Evening is the symbol of the
advancing age or old age. Wind and its sweep symbolize death. Downy flakes
symbolize dead people. The horse also stands for rustic common sense without
any feelings, emotions and provocations of nature. It is the horse that sets us
thinking as to why the man stopped there in the midst of the jungle, far from the
essential amenities required for maintenance of human life.
The repetition of the line ‘And miles to go before I sleep’ is poignantly
symbolic. ‘Miles to go’ and ‘sleep’ are suddenly transformed into symbols. ‘Miles
to go’ perhaps assumes the dimensions of the tedious, seemingly unending journey

Page 1 of 12
of life and ‘sleep’ symbolizes the final sleep-death. The poem consists of four
stanzas, each stanza having four lines. Each line of the poem is octosyllabic. All
the stanzas of the poem are interlinked. In the first stanza, the first, second and
fourth lines have the same rhyme in the end. The third line of this stanza rhymes
with the first, second and fourth lines of the second stanza. The third line of the
second stanza rhymes with the first, second and fourth lines of the third stanza.
The third line of the third stanza rhymes with all the lines of the last stanza. Thus
all the stanzas of the poem are interlocked with the help of end rhymes. The poem
is very simple, lyrical and musical. The words culled for the purpose are simple
soft, sweet and monosyllabic.

Themes of the poem :

1. Unparalleled Beauty of Nature
This is the central theme of the poem. The poem comprises the thoughts of an
adult who intentionally pauses his life for a moment to enjoy the bounties of
nature. The images of the dark, deep and lonely woods, cool weather, and frozen
lake connect the readers with the writer’s thoughts. He is tempted to the calmness,
serenity, and silence of the place where he can hear even the unheard sounds. The
quietness of the woods allow him to listen to the music of the wind and enjoy the
gentle touch of falling snow.

2. Journey
The journey is another important theme of the poem. The speaker of the poem is
a traveler. The readers are not informed about the start and end of his journey. All
they know is that he stops in the woods, far from human civilization, to enjoy the
magnificent beauty of nature. His mysterious journey leaves a significant message
to the readers that one should not compromise his wishes while chasing his
desires.

3. Man versus Nature

Man Versus nature is another evident theme of the “Stopping by Stopping by
Woods on a Snowy Evening” . The poem presents a tussle between the speaker’s
innermost desire and his worldly duties. His stopping reflects his wishes to pause
life to live only for himself. However, the continuation of his travel depicts the

2
powerful drag of worldly responsibilities. The writer beautifully shows how
sometimes we have to keep our wishes aside and accept what life offers us.
4. Hesitation and Choice
Throughout the poem, the speaker seems stuck between society’s obligation and
nature’s offer of reflection and solitude. He is tempted to the matchless beauty and
wants to stay as a loner, but the considerable distance from his duties hinders his
peace. It pushes him back to the place where he has to fulfill many promises before
his sleep. Death in “Stopping by Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”
The writer has not implied this theme directly in the poem. Instead, it is reflected
in the final stanza, where he decides to continue his journey. The repetition of the
verse, “And miles to go before I sleep,” shows that he is approaching the end of
life. Therefore, after taking a short pause, he chooses to catch the normal pace of
life, where he had to accomplish various tasks before his death.

• Critical Analysis of the poem

This poem is one of the most quietly moving of frost’s lyrics. The lyric is
Simplicity itself. Poem starts with the question like,
“Whose woods these are I think I know”
Here we find that our speaker is sound confuse, he is not confident about the owner
of the woods. The speaker thinks that he knows the owner of the woods, and he
lives in a house in the village and village is not the most hopping’ place in the
world. And he feels calm because he knows that the owner of the wood is not
present in the wood so he can move freely in it. Here snow is a kind of Temptation.
The poem is about the continuity of time and life. Poet is talking about the idea of
spiritual.
“He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow”
Here God is symbolizing as village and woods. The illusion of poet we can see
here because as we know that good is everywhere though poet believes that the
owner of the wood can’t see him. Here woods are symbolized as nature and the
owner of the nature is god. “My little horse” is use for “the soul” and horse is a
kind of a tool to rich your destination. There is something strange for the horse
because our speaker stop his horse in the woods and near the farm house so horse
could not find the reason of speaker’s stop at middle. Poet stops in between woods

3
and a lake which is frozen with snow, because he was fascinated by the beauty of
the woods and frozen lake. And between the woods and frozen lake symbolize the
period of birth to death.
“The darkest evening of the year”
The darkest evening of the year mean by him is about the season of winter. And
winter symbolizes the death. And the other meaning of it is that the one fourth
parts of a day and a day means a life. Poet is saying that “Life is like a day” and
the darkest evening is the worst time of the soul or may be for poet or an
individuals. The darkest evening of the year is also symbolized as near to die or
about to die.
“He gives his harness bells a shake”
Bell is a kind of guide here. And here the line suggests that a person who can
predict the bad or worst situation before the things will happen by getting some
signs. So here bell is use as symbol for make him aware about the place. And
instead of bells ringing sound we find the sound of sweeping, and this comes from
the slight wind and softly falling snow.
And the last four line of the last stanza has a very deep meaning.
Has a very deep meaning.
“The woods are lovely, dark and deep.”
Poet connects the word woods with life and the meaning of this line is that life is
lovely as well as dark, it means full of risk and difficulty. And deep it means
whatever happens with us throughout our life that is difficult to understand some
times. So the complexity of life is symbolized with the word deep.
“But I have promises to keep”
The line suggests that whatever the life of an individual he or she has to live.
Everyone has to accept the truth or reality of their life and try to live with it. And
the last two lines are very important.
“And miles to go before I sleep.
And miles to go before I sleep.”
The line suggest that Death is the ultimate reality of the life but before that an
individual has some duty to fulfill and the words like “and miles to go” suggest
the same thing that there are so many works and responsibility an individual has

4
and he has to complete before the end of his life. And “before I sleep” it
symbolizes the death.
××××

2. Because I could not stop for Death.

About the poet

Emily Dickenson was an American poetess born in the year 1930. She was highly
known to have an isolated and eccentric personality. Her penchant for wearing
white clothes made her personality more mystical. She never got married. In the
last years of her life, she became even more isolated and was connected with
friends through strict correspondence.
She wrote around 1800 poems, but only a dozen of them were published during
her lifetime. Death and immortality were recurring topics in most of her works.
She achieved fame posthumously. She is now considered as one of the most
important American poets of all times.

Introduction
Because I could not stop for Death’ is a lyrical poem by Emily Dickinson. It was
first published posthumously in ‘Poems: Series 1’ in 1890. The poem was
published under the title ‘The Chariot’. It is very different from conventional
rhyme schemes or punctuation patterns. The poem personifies death as a
gentleman who accompanies the speaker on a carriage ride to the grave.

Themes
There are several important themes in ‘Because I could not stop for Death’. The
most obvious of these are mortality and death. What makes this poem’s take on
these two themes so interesting is that they are depicted from a position of
immortality. The speaker is already in the afterlife when she’s describing her
experiences with death. This leads to another theme, immortality. This is part of
the reason why the speaker is so calm throughout the majority of the poem. Such
themes are also explored in other Emily Dickinson poems.

5
Confronting Mortality: The central theme of the poem is the personal
confrontation with mortality. Dickinson handles this challenging theme by
presenting it through a series of images, metaphors, and events. The speaker is
invited to take a ride in a horse-drawn carriage by the gentlemanly “Death.” Much
of the power of the poem comes from its understated quality. Dickinson does not
explain the situation, but merely offers it to us in a matter-of-fact manner. There
is an attitude of calm acceptance that seems proper in the light of death, a
phenomenon that has always eluded human rationalization.

Contemplating Eternity: One of the themes Dickinson presents to us is that of

one’s destination after death. As the speaker’s ride in Death’s carriage progresses,
two destinations are referenced. The first is the speaker’s own grave in the earth—
“a swelling of the ground.” The second is the direction of the horses’ heads:
“eternity.” The idea of eternity is presaged by the mention of the carriage’s third
passenger: “Immortality.” As with the topic of death, Dickinson does not explain
or literalize the ideas of eternity or immortality. Rather, she entertains them within
the bounds of the poem, presenting them for us to ponder as well.

Tone and Mood

This poem has a very distinct tone and mood. The tone which is the voice of the
poet or speaker in the poem is calm and measured. She is aware of what is
happening around her but is not overly emotional about it. This is maintained
throughout the first few stanzas until the speaker gets closer to death. At this point,
things start to shift a little and the tone becomes more sinister. This is seen through
words like “Chill” and “quivering”. The last lines bring back the peace of the first
part of the poem as the speaker matter-of-factly states that the horse’s heads are
pointed towards eternity.

The mood of a poem is the emotional experience that the poet is attempting to
create for the reader. It is what the reader should feel while reading and after
finishing the poem. In the case of this particular poem, the tone and mood are tied
together.

6
Structure and Form
‘Because I could not stop for Death’ by Emily Dickinson is a six stanza poem that
is divided into sets of four lines, known as quatrains. These quatrains do not follow
a single rhyme scheme, although there are examples of perfect rhyme in the poem.
For example, “me,” “immortality” and “civility” in the first two stanzas.

The meter is much more consistent. It resembles a regular metrical pattern. The
first and third lines are made up of four sets of two beats, or a total of eight
syllables. The first of these beats is unstressed and the second is stressed. This is
known as iambic tetrameter. The second and fourth lines also use iambs (or
unstressed and stressed beats) but there are only three sets of two beats in each
line. This is known as iambic trimeter.

Critical Appreciation of the Poem :

The poem begins with
“Because I couldn’t stop for Death “
Which means that the narrator or the speaker was not ready for death. This means
that the poetess imagines death to be a kind of gentleman who came to take her
away in a carriage that moved towards immortality. These lines are apparently
contradictory semantically. How can a dead person be immortal? But if we think
carefully we will be able to realize that a mortal person, a living person can die.
But how can a dead person die? Hence the poetess is correct when she says both
she and death were heading towards immortality. In the next stanza, the poetess
says,

We slowly drove – He knew no doubts

She calmly explains that they were not in any hurry. She also puts her labor as
well as leisure aside. The poetess says this for her civility. She simply meant to
depict that death was civil to her and therefore she put aside those things which
she had been doing or she had to do including her hobbies and her works where
she perceived pleasure.

7
In the next stanza, the poetess depicts a dual view through intellectual lines. When
she said

We passed the School, where Children strove

At Recess – in the Ring –
The carriage not only passed the school where children were playing in the recess
but she symbolically represented her childhood. As the carriage passed by the
school, she also meant her childhood has passed away. In the few lines, similar
symbolical meanings have been mentioned for a better poetic experience. The
carriage passes through the field of gazing grains. This metaphorically depicts the
youth of the speaker. Then they passed the setting sun. Here the phrase ‘The
Setting Sun’ is a metaphor for ‘Old Age’. The poetess very wisely showed that
the entire journey of life – from childhood to youth to old age passed smoothly
and peacefully.

Life is like dew drops – fresh and quivering alive and the forever chilled
demonstrating quietness. The poetess got ready to meet death. She wore her
gossamer, gown, and shawl which was made up of very soft material. Here also
the poetess intellectually depicts some other meaning. She means to say that her
body was soft and delicate like those clothes rather those clothes were her body
that would be buried in the grave.

In the next stanza, the speaker talks about her permanent house – her grave. After
death, the material reality, which she experienced as a living person was of no
importance. Both the roof and ground were one and the same.

In the last and final stanza, the speaker is feeling solemnness and coolness. She
truly feels of eternity. She had been in the grave for a long time but even the
centuries seemed as if they were shorter than a day. In the concluding lines, the
speaker realizes that the carriage was attached to the horses who were heading
towards eternity.

×××××

8
3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Introduction
The poem ‘I know Why the Caged Bird Sings’ by Maya Angelou is arguably one
of the most moving and eye opening poems ever written. Angelou also wrote an
autobiography with this same title. It is clear that this title had great significance
to Angelou, as it was the title to her entire life story. In her autobiography, she
talked about the struggle of being a black author and poet. She often felt that her
words were not heard because of the color of her skin. .She felt that in some ways,
she was still experiencing slavery. Although African Americans were free people
in Angelou’s time, there were restrictions on them in society, making it so that
many black Americans did not free at all.

The poem gives expression to the feelings of these black Americans, rather of all
the oppressed people in the world. Obviously, it deals explicitly and implicitly
with the problems related to race, gender, slavery and freedom. It refers to two
birds : one trapped in cage and the other free, swaying and flying with the wind.
The encaged bird stands for a black American and the free bird for a white person.
The poem makes it clear that the encaged bird on an enslaved individual may be
physically restricted or restrained but can not be stopped from singing and
dreaming of freedom. A free bird flying with the wind has complete freedom and
chance to fly again at will. The third stanza has been repeated for emphasis and it
imparts a message to the readers that we should be aware and thankful for the
freedom we have.

Moral of the Poem :

The poem is ultimately positive because although the caged bird has no freedom,
its hope, cannot be dimmed by its ‘bars of rage’ and ‘clipped wings’. Its song is
so loud that it is heard on a distant hill, perhaps forcing the free bird to take a
notice. This can be compared to slavery in the U.S.A. the caged bird being a slave
and the free bird a white man. Importantly, African American slaves often used to
sing while working. This had the effect of raising their spirits and maintaining
unity, producing a sense of hope. The poem moralizes that freedom is birth right

9
of every creature of the universe and no one can be deprived of it. Then it brings
to us that hope lies eternal.

Form and Structure of the Poem :

Angelou does not allow meter, rhyme and stanza to control her poetry. She
determines her own structure-or lack of it-and uses form and device for her own
means; she searches for the sound, the tempo, the rhythm and the rhyme
appropriate for each line. ‘Caged Bird’ is an example of unstructured verse. The
number of beats per line varies. For example, line first has four beats, line second
has six, line third has four and line four has five. The number of lines in each
stanza fluctuates as well; stanzas first and second have seven lines each, but
stanzas three and four have eight. In addition to her use of the intermittent stanza,
Angelou repeats stanza three as stanza five; this repetition is reminiscent of the
chorus in a song.
Themes
‘Caged Bird’ is filled with powerful themes. These include racial oppression,
freedom/captivity, and happiness/sorrow. These themes are all wrapped together
in ‘Caged Bird’ through Angelou’s depiction of the two birds, one free and one
caged.

The caged bird is an extended metaphor for the Black community in America and
worldwide. Angelou is alluding to the lived experience of millions of men,
women, and children since the beginning of time and the variety of oppressive
tactics, whether physical, mental, or economic, employed by those in power.

Black men, women, and children see “through…bars” while the free bird sores in
the sky. The bird sings from a place of sadness rather than joy to convey a broader
history of sorrow.

Freedom and Slavery

The predominant theme of the poem is freedom. The first line depicts this by
introducing “the free bird.” And the opposite theme is “slavery.” A caged bird in
captivity “sings of freedom.” The caged bird was created for freedom as a free

10
bird. Nonetheless, it is in an unnatural situation, trapped in a cage. Not only is it
trapped, but its body has been mutilated as well.

Despair and Hope

The caged bird is in a state of despair. Being tied up in the cage compromises his
movement. He is hopeful that it will transform into a free bird. That is why he
sings of the anticipated freedom. Freedom seems out of reach, and his “tune is
heard” in the distant hill. This tells us that the bird is hopeful one day he will fly
over to the distant hill just like his voice.

Fear and Courage

While the free bird finds it easy to fly and enjoy his freedom by claiming the sky,
the caged bird lives in fear. However, he is courageous enough to keep singing
and use the power of his throat to fight for his freedom.

Adversity and Good Fortune

Sometimes it takes hardship to find out your abilities and strengths, like the caged
bird. Sometimes you enjoy the good fortune of using all your abilities, like the
free bird.

The caged bird uses his voice to the fullest to help him through hard time, but the
free bird has time to enjoy himself with his free body. This can also explain the
theme of power and powerlessness.

Critical Appreciation :
The Choice of the Words :
The vocabulary used in the poem is simple and straightforward which highlights
the poetic style. The adjectives used in the poem such as free or caged for the birds
reflect the social status of the Whites and the African-Americans. The phrases
such as ‘orange sun rays’, ‘dares to claim the sky’, display the freedom, gaiety and
exuberance of the White race. On the other hand, phrases such as ‘narrow cage’,

11
“bars of rage’, ‘fearful trills’ display the African-Americans’ narrow social space,
their anguish and their helplessness.

The Use of Repetition :

Final stanza is the repetition of the stanza three. It emphasizes again that though
the encaged bird has never experienced freedom, it still sings of it. Its song is
heard now far and wide and its longing for freedom and equality cannot be
dismissed as a distant voice.

The Use of Imagery and Symbols :

Maya Angelou’s poem ‘Caged Bird’ is certainly full of imagery in every line and
every stanza. The very first image we see is that of a ‘free bird’ leaping on the
“back of the wind’. Since we can literally see a bird in nature leaping and jumping,
or flying against the wind. We can see how this counts as a right image. Other
images we see are that of the bird floating ‘downstream’ and dipping its ‘in the
orange sun rays’.

Since the poetess is now speaking of a bird in relation to a stream, we get the sense
she is speaking of a water-fowl, like a duck. Since we can literally see things
floating downstream we know that the phrase ‘floats downstream’ counts as a
sight image. In addition, though a bird will not literally dip its wings into the rays
of the sun, we know that the sun’s rays reflect on surface of water. Hence, based
on the final couple of lines in the first stanza, we can picture the bird literally
dipping its wings into the image of the sun reflected on the water and then flying
off into the sky. Next auditory imagery is produced when the poet refers to bird’s
singing, its fearful trill, its tune, and the trees sighing. The bird’s ‘shadow shouts
on a nightmare scream’ is also an auditory image.

The poetess has also used some nature related object as symbols. The sun, the
wind and the hills stand for freedom, power and glory respectively. The free bird
can enjoy all these things whereas the caged bird is wholly deprived of all these
things.
×××××

12