Robert Frost had a rather hard life. Frost had experienced everything from rejection, to failure, and death. However in 1900, Frost moved his family to a farm in New Hampshire where they attempted to make a life for themselves on it for the next twelve years. Though this was a rewarding time for Robert’s writing, it was the hardest time he had faced yet in his personal life. Elliot, Frost’s firstborn son, died of cholera in 1900.
Following Elliot’s death, Elinor gave birth to four more kids. Frost’s daughter Irma, later developed a mental illness; Elinor the second, died just weeks after birth; Marjorie died in her late 20s after giving birth; and finally Frost’s second son Carol commited suicide in 1940. Additionally, during this time period, Frost and his wife attempted many endeavors, all proved to be unsuccessful. Despite such hard situations, it was during this time that Robert became accustom to his rural life. So much so that he grew to depict it well. Frost then began setting several of his works in the countryside (Biography.com).
The poem “Dust of Snow” written by Robert Frost is an eight line poem that, without further analysis, seems to be a rather straightforward of poem. The simple, yet thorough, imagery of the poem depicts nothing more than a man, a crow, a hemlock tree, and snow. In addition when people think of crows they tend to associate crows with sadness and death; however, this is not always the case. Sometimes a crow may symbolizes intelligence, flexibility, destiny, magic, life, and mysteries. Furthermore, in this particular poem, the crow symbolizes life.
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The rather simplistic poem’s main theme is how big a small event can really be. In the first stanza, it seems as if the speaker is standing under a snow filled tree hemlock tree when a crow shakes some snow down on the speaker. However, the speaker is not angry or frustrated with the bird, but instead seems almost enlightened. Furthermore, the speakers day became better because the event allowed the speaker to see the day from a different perspective.
The speaker once rued the day until as something as simple as a natural event “has given my heart/ a change of mood” (5,6). Not only is the poem’s word choice and length simple, but the short rhythmic beat and rhyming lines are simple in itself. The simple ABAB rhyme reflects the minimalist imagery.
