Write a critical appreciation of Robert Frost's 'The Wood Pile', noting to what extent it seems typical of Frost's poetic interests and techniques.

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Write a critical appreciation of Robert Frost’s ‘The Wood Pile’, noting to what extent it seems typical of Frost’s poetic interests and techniques.

“The wood pile” is an ambiguous, enigmatic poem whose meaning cannot be immediately discerned by the reader. Even in the first line of the poem, “out walking in the frozen swamp one grey day”, the environment seems to be cold and bleak, adding to this sense of divisive atmosphere. It can even be said the poem might be anticipated to be hard to read with this complex environment.

The next few lines start already to show the perplexity of the narrator as he decides on whether to go on or turn back. He first thought that he will “turn back from here”. And on the next line he immediately changes his mind to “go further – and we shall see”. We, as the reader, wonder why he has this sudden change on mind. Is he finding something, or perhaps trying to escape? As the narrative himself ventures on into the unknown, we as the reader are also implacably drawn in to follow him in his journey.

As the writer trudges on in the snow, and continue to see the almost identical landscape of trees, something caught his eye – “a small bird”. On one level, it can be seen that the narrator is leveling criticism on the bird for being arrogant, paranoid as well as egoistic because it said “no word to tell me who he was” and “was careful/To put a tree between us”. At the same time, it indirectly causes the narrator own egotism to shine through. It could even be said that the criticisms made by the narrator at the bird are the same criticisms we the reader would level upon the narrator himself. The line  “like one who takes/Everything said as personal to himself” is most apt at reflecting how the narrator is like, though the irony is in the fact that he said it himself. The line “who was so foolish as to think what he thought” is also worthy of mention as the narrator once more shows his double-thinking mind. In the line following that statement, he immediately tries to guess what the bird was thinking – “he thought I was after him for a feather”. In that respect, he could be said to be calling himself foolish. This further lends itself to the wonderfully enigmatic nature of the poem, where the narrator himself is confused and his thoughts incoherent. Eventually, when the bird went behind the woodpile to “make its last stand”, the narrator himself gives a glimpse of how intricately he and the bird are connected in the line “the way I might have gone”.

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The woodpile itself is described in good detail, “a cord of maple, cut and split/And piled—and measured, four by four by eight”. The rhythm when reading “four by four by eight” is constant, almost as if the sound helps to emphasize the regular pattern of arrangement of the wood in the woodpile. The woodpile in itself is complex. It is formed out of wood, a part of nature, yet its assembling is by human hands, it can be said to be a mix of both, a blend of man and nature. Yet, when Frost writes, the “tree” which held ...

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