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Birches by Robert Frost

1. The poem Birches by Robert Frost uses the symbol of birch trees to explore themes of childhood, imagination, and the transition to adulthood. 2. The poem recalls the speaker's childhood memories of swinging from birch trees and the freedom of imagination this allowed. 3. However, the poem also acknowledges that adulthood requires accepting limits and responsibilities, represented by returning from the imaginary world to reality.

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681 views2 pages

Birches by Robert Frost

1. The poem Birches by Robert Frost uses the symbol of birch trees to explore themes of childhood, imagination, and the transition to adulthood. 2. The poem recalls the speaker's childhood memories of swinging from birch trees and the freedom of imagination this allowed. 3. However, the poem also acknowledges that adulthood requires accepting limits and responsibilities, represented by returning from the imaginary world to reality.

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English
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Birches

-Robert Frost

Robert Frost’s Birches is a narrative poem which was included in his third volume
of poems, called “Mountain Interval”. The poem is a reminiscence of an adult
about his childhood days of swinging on birches and it is this symbol that unites
the various themes intertwined in the poem. The various themes are 1.
Imagination vs Adulthood 2. Nature’s beauty 3. Youth vs Adulthood 4. Need for
limits and 5. Isolation of an individual.

1. Imagination vs Reality – The key action in the poem of swinging free from
the confraints of the mundane problems of the earth, to the freedom of the
sky where imagination reaches it’s climax but then one swings back
towards reality. It is this tension of swinging back and forth that there is a
conflict created between the harsh limitations of reality and attractive
possibilities of play and imagination. However there is a harmonious
synthesis of the two extremes when he assents “Earth’s the right place for
love” – the real world is beset with problems but it is also the place for love
whereas the Imaginary world is innocent but it is solitary and loveless. So
the imagination flight has it’s limits just as the tree which may reach
towards heaven but remains grounded for the removal of limits would
leave one person groundless, with no way to define oneself.
2. Nature’s beauty – Frost’s imagination runs riot in the poem with the poet
describing the snowladen birches bending left and right to the pleasing
vision of a boy at play. He imagines the ice shattered by the sun to the
heaps of broken glass to be swept away. The beauty of the birches is
described as it appears both in winter and in summer. The ice-storm lovers
the branches of trees with crystalline ice that is delightful to both the eye
and the ear as they “click upon themselves” and the sun “cracks and crazes
their enamel.” Thus the storm makes it seem as if “the inner dome or
heaven had fallen.” The bowed down Birches are imagined as girls, who
throw their wet hair over their faces in order to dry them which brings out
the delicacy and the vulnerability of the trees.
3. Youth vs Adulthood – The poem begins with the image of birches beat left
and right and he associates it with his childhood days evoking a feeling of
joy by reminding the poet of his own childhood days when he used to be
“swinger of birches”. There is a nostalgia yearning to return to his innocent
pursuits of childhood days. There is an element of rebellion too, where the
young boy feels the need to conquer all the trees planted by his father or
breaking tree to paternal control. The boy lives far away from the city so he
cannot play swinging birches.
The white and black birches are symbolic of transformation from childhood
to adulthood is described, “a pathless wood” where difficulties of life may
lead one to easily loose direction. So the poet desires “That would be good
for both going and coming back” where the joyful transcendence of
boyhood returning to the everyday rigouns of life after being refreshed.
4. Need for limits – The rigouns of real world imposes a restriction on the joys
of imagination possibilities. Limits are imposed on man and one cannot
escape to the world of fantasy for we are constrained by temporal
considerations of life. So the real world is not to be displeased but he wants
to exist along the arch of a birch tree, that is, the curved path between the
opposite poles.
5. Isolation – The world of imagination is portrayed as innocent but one is
isolated there just as the rural boy seeks entertainment in nature as he is
dissociated from company of other boys as in the baseball game but he is
forced to play at me. The boy after carefully reaching the top of the trees as
one fills a cup to the table till he kicks his feet and the tree bends just
enough to lower him on the ground to human company.
Thus the poet here interweaves different themes through the images of the
birch trees “bent left and right” the childhood play and the need to return to
reality to create a great work of art.

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