My Commentary on Frost's "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening"

by Raphael

The imagery of the poem paints a very detailed picture. In stanza two, lines three and four, describes the dark surrounding the character is in. The author of the poem had a good play of words. The poem had alliteration in every stanza. For example, in the first stanza, the letter W for whose and woods, H for his and house, lastly T for think and though. The poem also has personification, like in the line “My little horse must think it queer”, the horse is being personified. Personification is attributing human traits to animals or things. These aspects help the poem by giving an image to the reader so he could understand more about the poem.

The stanzas of the poem were well organized and were based on the order of events. This makes the reader visualize the sequence of the happenings. The rhyme structure of the poem is aaba except the last the stanza which has aaaa, gives more fun on reading. The stanzas have a rhyme pattern which makes the poem catchy. The poem has four stanzas composed of quatrains and each line has eight syllables. Each stanza’s length is long enough to show the idea clearly. If it was too short it will be hard to get the idea.

The theme of the poem is about keeping promises. The traveler in the poem had two choices either to stay in the woods and relax or to keep his promises and continue traveling to his destination. The traveler, not thinking for his pleasure, chose to continue his journey and keep his promises. Today, people should honor their word. It is important because if you stood by your way people will trust you more because you are known as a responsible person.

The content of the poem made more of an impact to me than the way it was written. Also the traveler’s decision affected me. I both disagree and agree in several points of the traveler’s decision. I disagree on the idea of him trespassing because even though no one can witness what he was doing, he should respect another person’s land. Basically trespassing is wrong. Then again, I agree with the fact that he kept his promises for the greater good.

I conclude that the whole poem was constructed well. It has a good structure that could hold a powerful content. It is one thing that I recommend for everyone to read.

Raphael continues to train for his swimming meets. He is currently taking lessons in Latin and brushing up with his Filipino as well.