Robert Frost essay

Robert Frost, well known American author of several poems, can be seen to write with a recurring theme. His poems can be interpreted in many ways, but when looked at closely one can explore the terrifying side to his works, directly or not obvious at all. Using different techniques, Robert Frost can be proved to be a terrifying poet. 

When one is terrified, he is made uncomfortable in some sort of way. When a situation is vexatious, the obvious and primary emotion is fear. Unfamiliarity with someone or something also instills terror in an individual. “Mending Wall” by Robert Frost depicts several situations in which an individual is made to feel uncomfortable and  not accustomed to a situation. “I see him there, bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top in each hand, like an old stone savaged armed. He moves in darkness as it seems to me,” presents abstruse actions being performed by the “he” in the poem, “moving in darkness” and “armed.” The behavior of the individual makes the reader uncomfortable, therefore terrorizing him in a subtle way. 

Separation from someone or something can also be said to terrorize someone. Solitude or ostracism have ways of frightening those that they affect. “And on a day we meet to walk the line and set the wall between us once again. We keep the wall between us as we go,” depicts the literal and figurative wall that separates and defines the two, making them different and unfamiliar with each other. “Before I built a wall I’d ask to know what I was walling in or walling out, and to whom I was like to give offence. ‘Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, that wants it down,’” illustrates the opposition that the speaker has to a wall, fearing separation. 

Obstacles in any situation inflicts terror on an individual. Whether it be fearing the unknown, being unfamiliar with the problem, or just being unaware on how to proceed, obstacles are terrifying.  “To each the boulders that have fallen to each. And some are loaves and some so nearly balls we have to use a spell to make them balance: ‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’ We wear our fingers rough with handling them,” presents boulders as an obvious encumbrance to the speaker, causing uneasiness and adulteration. The boulders are damaging; anything that one knows to cause damage also causes fear along with it, terrorizing those whom it overtakes. 

Robert Frost, a true american terrifying poet, uses discrete ways of presenting his readers with terrifying situations. By using obstacles, unfamiliarity, and separation, he inflicts terror on others. Direct or obvious, if written by Robert Frost, it is a terrifying piece of work.