I can't seem to fully wrap my head around this poem. It's what my senior paper is about, and this is my limp little thesis:
"In "Birches", Robert lee Frost uses nature to explore life and the longings of the inner child."
Now that doesn't sound quite right to me. But if I could get some different interpretations of it; different viewpoints and such, it would help me immensely. In what light do you see this poem? Please share.

I see it more as bad times warp the personality, but when the good times return the natural personality is restored. He would prefer it if the only influences shaping things were fun and happy, but they're not.

Very aposite poem - we had 6 inches of snow last night and it's still going strong:

Birches
by Robert Lee Frost

When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust--
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
(Now am I free to be poetical?)
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows--
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

I'd say it was an allegory for life, and that the message is that bad things have more effect than good ones, and are not wholly redeemable by the return of good times. Overall, life goes downhill as you get older, even though there are little periods of going up again, you never get back completely to how you were before bad things happened. He uses 3 metaphors - the one about birch trees being shaped by weather (he'd rather they were shaped by a boy having fun, though I suspect it'd be equally unpleasant for the trees either way!) one about woods - contrasting having fun and swinging through trees with having to plough through untracked woodland and the effects of that on you. and the third about going up and down rather than trudging along - something like amplitude being greater in youth than age because one has more surplus energy . Most of the fun is in youth, and though he would prefer not to die young, the poet would like to go by adventure rather than be eroded by misfortune. Basically, he now wants a break and a new start, he's feeling careworn and tired, he doesn't want to die but to start again refreshed, but if he is to die wants to go in a grand gesture.

And with both Linda and Marian's comments, in short, a question of pessimism or optimism.

I wonder why he chose birches. Rather than some other tree, I mean. Oak, perhaps, or maple. When I picture a birch tree, I see a tall, white truck with black markings like slashes on them. No branches low to the ground, but much higher, where it would be very difficult to swing on them.

[www.terragalleria.com]

This one is the state tree of New Hampshire, so it could be the one he was considering?

[www.arborday.org]

I saw him climbing up the slender trunk and the whole tree bending as his weight gets higher, so it has to be a birch not an oak, cos an oak would break not bend. He's not using the branches at all.

Also, a Birch is delicate and not as common as an oak...at least not in my neck of the woods.

Thank you wonderful people for replying! This has definetely helped. And thanks to Hugh for the pictures, because I was a trifle confused as to what birches look like. I couldn't get a solid picture in my head, but, like Linda, I pictured the tree bending as he clambered up it. Hmmm, yeah....
So now I need to rethink my thesis. That was interesting.
So...I'm thinking that this IS about life, but not so much about an inner child. So scratch that. He is reflecting on life (the journey and its effects), he's tired, he's thinking back to happier days, times are getting tougher and he wants to get away. Pessimism and optimism and his affected outlook on life. (Throwing out ideas to myself, here.) Alright!
Any other opinions? (And has anyone ever witnessed or experienced birch swinging??)

>Any other opinions?

If you don't mind the highfalutin language:

[www.english.uiuc.edu]

"redemptive imagination" and "dangerous transcendence" in the first sentence- that's beyond highfalutin and into BS.

pam

Ha ha, Pam! No, I don't mind all the 'highfalutin', Hugh. I'll have to read over that page you linked me - it looks promising!

analyize Frost use of order and control throghout the poem Birches. Any thoughts?

hey..I'm new here....is poetry archives forums a good place for me to park for awhile?? I hope so....please let me know the type of conversations you have.....thought asking the question would be faster than reading every post....however, I will read these because I love Robert Frost :)
thanks in advance...care

maybe he chose the birch tree because its such a common tree in New England.....possibly it was growing outside his home?? just a thought.

care-

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pam

I read what you wrote.Tho the poem doesn't come to mind.I
will look up the author and look further on the internet.I often
read poetry to relax,read it a few times and bang it comes to me.
Lauel

I've often wondered about possibile sexual connotations of the second half of the poem, that would fall into the adoloscent theme ...

'riding them down over and over again '
'hung limp'
'stiffness'

at a glance that is...

ta

Rowley, I recall one of my English professors in college who cautioned us over-zealous students against reading too much into every rolling hill and every stout young tree we see in verse.

Les

Ah true, but the poem is certainly about adolescence, it certainly is possible. However, this a bit shattering to a sort of 'innocent' Frost image that I have, and is just an opinion to consider..

ta

"sometimes a cigar is just a cigar"
Sigmund Freud

Johnny- are you sure it was Sigmund, not Clement!



Post Edited (04-28-05 03:24)

The intended pun is on britches, not birches, sheesh!