Who had driven out the cold
And polished my good shoes as well
Here you receive the entire picture of the relationship between father and son both are too tough to love each other openly. However the father has driven the cold from the house not wanting his family to be uncomfortable and has also polished the sons good shoes, another sign of how much the father cares of the son. Skipping back to the top the son speaks indifferently to his father, the stubbornness of childhood and still the father cares for his son like none other. :
What did I know, what did I know
Of love’s austere and lonely offices?
The son is reflecting back on his childhood finally realizing what his father gave up for him with his “cracked hands that ached” (3). Robert Hayden, saying love can be shown in very different ways. Ending the poem with a question mark to make us look back and reflect upon what we consider love and how do we consider love? And how do we know when some one is sacrificing their own happiness for our own sake? or are they sacrificing them selves, has society told us this is the way we should be? Or is this poem on a deeper level telling us that the only way for redemption is self-sacrifice? Robert Hayden poised more questions in this poem then he answered, making each and everyone of us look deep inside of our selves for answers to questions that we may never know. And a further point that we do need to show love for the loved ones in our lives, those who have given up something up it is the sacrifice that should be considered. Sadly very few people notice these things until the opportunity to show your love is too far-gone.
"Looking back, I have this to regret, that too often when I loved, I did not say so."
-
Robert Frost
The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost, just hearing his name makes you curious makes you wonder what’s this going to be about such a common first name and a completely different last name. Hearing the name brings upon aurora this is someone who is great I should be privileged to read into his thoughts make them my own. “The Road Not Taken” the first thing that comes to mind Non-conformity, however as you read on you begin to peal away at the inner thoughts of Robert Frost.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth
We are all travelers in life, making decisions that affect us in so many ways unknown by simply stepping on a bug the second of thought we spend on that has unknowingly affected us forever. Now most likely that is going to affect you very little compared on a much larger scale where Frost is talking about here. This new road in the “yellow wood” just adding to the picture in our mind yellow meaning ambivalent or mixture of opposite feelings. Woods, a place of testing, also can be a point in life where you make a decision. Frost cleverly choosing these to exactly tell us what to see and how to see what he wants us to.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
Key in this segment was “how way leads on to way,” (14) one decision warrants another and another. Knowing that after making a decision what’s done is done nothing can change that.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Here you see the poem as a whole and what it is meant to show, regret “I shall be telling this with a sigh”(16) This is not nessacarlly a bad regret simply the wondering, what if. The voice in the poem has aged he is no longer a traveler in life but has settled down. Looking back. He now as time to look back and wonder if taking the road less traveled was the wisest idea. This becomes the most interesting part you can look at it with heavy sexual under tones and think that Frost may have be considering coming out of the closet. Religion is also something that can be looked at here did he stray from the norm? “that has made all the difference.” Was what he chooses good? Who can tell he has made a choose to take a road less traveled by others as an old man reflecting back wondering would life have turned out better or worse? We must all choose roads to take in life, you better off to just roll with it and never look back.
"Regrets are idle; yet history is one long regret. Everything might have turned out so differently."
-, My Summer in a Garden
Metaphor a figure of speech, phrase or word that and author can use to compare some to another. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day” William Shakespeare, the metaphor is a “summer’s day” referring to a women throughout the entire poem he compares her to other things in nature. He loves her completely, summer though is something that does not last forever but her beauty is so great that she lives on forever if only in the minds of others. Just like a “summer’s day” he cannot hold her forever, except in his heart or soul which is forever summer there.
A simile is a term or phrase that an author uses to make a connection between to completely unrelated things. In “Dream Deferred” Langston Hughes, “Like a raisin in the sun?” the raisin is the dream in the poem, what is happening to the dream however is unknown. What does happen to a dream deferred? He is not so much asking the question but telling us not to put off dreams, they are something that shouldn’t be put off. If you continue deferrer all your dreams there will be nothing left. Your dreams must be followed.
Symbols are something that authors us all the time in all types of work, using them to represent something else then what they are saying. “A Poison Tree” William Blake, “Apple” was a very interesting symbol; the apple was actually representing the thing that was becoming between the two lovers and there relationship. The “pole” was referring to her soul similar to the garden but the pole or tree was in her garden signifying that its deeper to her just as her soul would be. The pole goes hand in hand with the apple in the poem the apple was growing on the tree/pole so you can easily see that there was something coming between the relationship what was bothering her soul.
