Line Gang Frost example essay topic

Robert Frost once said, "I have a lover's quarrel with the world". Frost loved parts of the world. He loved trees, plants, flowers, snow, animals; he loved nature. However, parts of the world, Frost did not appreciate. Frost disagreed with the way parts of the world work and his poetry gives us insight into his attitude. In four of his poems, "The Road Not Taken,"The Line-Gang,"Nothing Gold Can Stay", and "Design", his quarrel with the world is evident.

The Road Not Taken In line one, Frost introduces the elements of his primary metaphor, the diverging roads. Lines two to three expresses the speaker's disappointment with his human limitations; he must make a choice. The choice is not easy, since 'long I stood' before coming to a decision. Lines four and five examine the path as best the narrator can. However his vision is limited because the path bends and is covered over. These lines indicate that although the speaker would like to acquire more information, he is prevented from doing so because of the nature of his environment.

In the following three lines, lines six through eight, the speaker indicates that the second path is a more attractive choice because it appears as though nobody has ventured down it recently. However, he remains ambivalent, since the traveled path is 'just as fair". Although the poet breaks for a new stanza after line 10, the comparison of the paths continues in lines nine through twelve. Here, the speaker states that the paths are 'really about the same. ' Neither path has been traveled lately. Although he's searching for a clear logical reason to choose a single path, not one presents itself.

In lines thirteen through fifteen, the speaker makes his decision. He tries to rationalize that he will be able to traverse both paths one day. However, he is quick to dismiss his hopes. Ending line thirteen, the exclamation point conveys excitement, but that excitement is quickly undercut by the admission contained in the following lines. In the final four lines, the only stanza beginning with a new sentence, the tone clearly shifts. The speaker imagines himself in the future, discussing his life.

What he suggests, here, though, appears to contradict what he has said earlier. At the end of the poem, in the future, he will claim that the paths were different from each other and that he, courageous, did not choose the conventional one. Frost's quarrel with the world is apparent in this poem. The speaker of this poem, presumable Frost himself, is forced to make a decision. Literally, he must choose a path in the woods. However, Frost's paths in the woods metaphorically describe the decisions that one must make in life.

Frost is perturbed with the world because, like the speaker, he has to choose between two divergent paths. Each path appears to be suitable, yet, Frost chose the one less traveled. Frost would like to have the ability to travel both paths. To return to the path that he did not choose. However, given the workings of the world, he must choose one path and never see the one he did not take. The Line Gang Frost begins his poem with the speaker describing a group of men.

From the wording, "Here come", we know that the speaker is located where the men are going. In the next line, we discover that the men are going to a forest to fell trees for lumber. Frost describes the forest not as "cut" but as "broken" to express the true effects of the line-gang's actions. Next, in lines four and five, the line-gang ties all the trees together and, using heavy machinery, perhaps a crane, they remove the logs from the forest. In line six and seven, Frost describes the deafening sound of the machinery, which silences all conversation no matter how loud a person speaks. In the next four lines, the line-gang uses taught cables to transport the lumber out of the forest so that it can be used to produce goods.

As they export the trees, the men laugh. In the final two lines, the speaker tells us that the trees will be brought to towns for use with telephones and telegraphs. It is clear that Frost uses this poem to express his disdain for the way that the world has changed. He is angry at the world for how it breaks the forest so that people living in towns can have telephones and telegraphs. Frost also shows us some irony in the use of telephones.

When the line-gang is acquiring lumber, the sound of the machinery is so loud that it kills all communication. In order to communicate with telephones, people must kill true, face-to-face communication while destroying the forests. Frost's quarrel with the world in this case is about how society values different things. Frost is angry that the world would destroy a forest with saws and noise so that people can further detach themselves from each other. Nothing Gold Can Stay In the first five lines, Frost describes nature. To begin, he states "Nature's first green is gold".

Frost is describing nature at its beginning. He uses the word "gold" to mean valuable or precious. When things begin in the cycle of nature, they are priceless. In the second line, the narrator tells us that nature's "green" is "the hardest hue to hold". With the cycles that dictate natures behavior, the seasons, it is impossible for nature to remain "green"; to remain young. In the following two lines, the narrator states that nature's flower, the most valuable and beautiful part of any plant lasts "only so an hour".

This line describes the fleeting behavior of nature. To conclude his poem, Frost refers to the Bible, stating, "So Eden sank to grief". This line is followed by another reference to the inevitability of nature. The cycle of days and nights cannot be stopped or slowed. In his final line, Frost writes a more abstract statement regarding nature and life: "Nothing gold can stay". Here, Frost acknowledges that nothing valuable is permanent and will eventually transform, just as "leaf subsides to leaf".

Frost's quarrel with the world is expressed here in that he is disappointed in how nothing remains the same. Literally, the poem describes the cycles of nature which produce nature's "first green", and then destroys it. Frost's poem relates to things larger than plants and flowers. His poem relates to life in general and the inevitability of death, part of the cycle that regulates human existence. Frost does not necessarily want to live eternally. However, in this poem we can see that he has a disenchanted attitude towards the transitory nature of life and the way that anything precious can exist "only so an hour " Design The poem begins with a description of a scene.

The scene takes place at night (line 12) and involves three characters: A spider, a moth, and a flower. In line one, Frost describes the spider. The spider is like any other, "fat" and "dimpled". However, unusually, the spider is white. Atypically, Frost has given a color associated with purity and innocence to the spider. In line two, Frost describes the flower.

Like the spider, the flower, a heal all, is given the unfitting color, white. The spider is on the heal-all, holding up a moth, presumably one, which the spider killed. In line three, Frost elaborates on the moth. The moth, like the spider and heal-all, is white. Frost compares the appearance and texture of the moth to satin, a delicate material similar to silk. Satin, usually soft and supple, is described here as "rigid".

This description ties into the death of the moth and the texture of its wings. Given the first three lines, on the surface it seems as though one character is guilty of killing the moth: The spider. However, in line four, Frost refers to "assorted characters of death and blight". He alludes to the responsibility of multiple characters for the moth's death.

Line five clarifies the time. Early in the morning, before the sun has risen, the spider, moth, and flower are ready to begin the day. In line six, frost compares the situation and its players to "a witches broth". Each component contributes to the product. Frost points out the lack of innocence in the entire scene. Frost finishes his description by recounting the individuals involved, the white, "snow drop" spider; the flower, compared to a "froth"; and finally the moth with its delicate dead wings.

Perhaps Frost's use of the word froth is meant to draw the reader back to the witch's broth. Or perhaps Frost was simply comparing the multitude of petals around a heal all, to the multitude of bubbles comprising a froth. In the second stanza, Frost's "Quarrel with the world" is most visible. In lines nine and ten, Frost asks why the heal-all was white.

He asks what business had the flower to deviate from the normal heal-all appearance. Heal-all's are flowers commonly dismissed as weeds. They grow in clusters and are known botanically as "Prunella vulgaris". Normally, numerous violet petals supported by a thin stem that holds the flower approximately one-foot high surround heal-all's, and two green leaves. A white heal-all is extremely rare, unheard of. However, in this situation, the heal-all is white.

The color of innocence, the white makes the heal-all stand out from its neighboring peers and, more importantly in this case, the dark of night. Frost uses the word "wayside: to describe the typical location of heal-all's: on the sides of roads. In lines eleven an twelve, Frost, using a rhetorical question, accuses the flower of being an accomplice to the crime of killing the moth. He accuses the flower of first giving the spider a hiding, camouflaging location and raising him to a suitable striking elevation. Second, Frost accuses the heal-all with its unorthodox color, of luring the moth directly to the spider. The final two lines are most indicative of Frost's quarrel with the world.

Frost, here, questions the creator of the situation, perhaps God. He asks if such a design, marked by trickery, deceit, and death is conspicuously evident in something so small as a flower, spider, and moth, this design must be evident in larger things: people and nations. Frost questions the designer's intent. Clearly whoever designed this situation, a minute, insignificant moment, took time to carefully craft an off colored heal-all, a conveniently camouflaged spider, and a dark night to draw a moth. Perhaps Frost's quarrel, in this poem, stems from the discrepancy between the creator he observes in this situation and the god that the world reveres. In all these poems, we can see Frost's quarrel with the world.

He was not hostile towards society and the world; he simply disagreed with it on certain issues. Therefore, his trouble with the world is best described as "a lover's quarrel.".