In Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” being alone in these woods seems an agreeable experience but soon the poet persona gets an alarming feeling of mystery. This poem illustrates these feelings by an evolution of the emotions due to its descriptions.

At first sight, the woods, where the poet persona stopped look like a nice place, the reader gets an emotion of harmony: “The woods are lovely” (13) highlights that it is a nice forest. Add to it the fact that it is a snowy evening and the feel of peace is even stronger1, because the snow is often a symbol of calm, purity which reinforces the idea that it is a quiet forest: “The only other sound’s the sweep/ Of easy wind and downy flake” (11-12). The woods here are as calm as an actual forest and it is highlighted by the only few sounds the narrator can hear such as the wind and the snow falling. In a few words, the way the atmosphere of the woods is described feels like it is a nice and quiet place to stop by.

Nevertheless, the more woods are described, the more they feel dangerous and scary. First, it happens in woods, in the middle of nowhere: “Whose woods these are I think I know/ His house is in the village though/ He will not see me stopping here” (1-3). Furthermore, “The woods are lovely, dark and deep” (13) contrasts the nice forest at the beginning: “The woods are lovely” (13) with the idea of a dark forest2. Moreover, being alone in an isolated and dark place creates a sensation of danger. Indeed, the time when the setting takes place adds to this unusual emotion: “The darkest evening of the year” (8) highlights the idea of darkness. Here the author could have written “the longest night of the year”3, but instead it is the darkest. Therefore, Frost insists on the idea of a dark time to make a stop. Lastly, the horse tries to wake the narrator up: “He gives his harness bells a shake/ To ask if there is some mistake” (9-10) indicates that the horse makes a noise because he thinks something is wrong. One can perceive a threat coming from this behaviour4. To summarize, the place and time everything happen and the confusion of the horse by asking if anything is wrong emphasises the feeling of being in some mysterious woods.

All these emotions described above are linked together by fatigue. First, it happens during a winter night, the quietest time of the year. Along it happens in a forest, an isolated site. As indicated above “The only other sound’s the sweep / Of easy wind and downy flake” (11-12) point out that no sound is being produced by human activities. In addition, not only is the snow known to temper every surrounding noises, but it also freezes the place. All that creates a feeling of laziness, exhaustion; it is winter, everything is asleep and silent.

To conclude, this text goes through a lot of different emotions, from feeling safe and quiet in a lovely forest to a dark place in the middle of nowhere. The feeling of fatigue takes both of these different feelings and mixes them with one another, creating this deep and calm, yet uncanny sentiment. The narrator is torn between these emotions, which everyone can feel by stopping in the woods alone.

1 Seen in the ILA class with Miss Lucy Perry 2 Ibid.

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid.

4 We have discussed it in the ILA class in group