19 pages • 38 minutes read
Robert FrostBirches
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1915A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Loss of Innocence
“Birches” uses the figure of a young boy to explore nostalgia and how adulthood alters a child’s perception and experience of the world. Frost begins by describing a solitary figure, a rural child “whose only play was what he found himself, / Summer or winter, and could play alone” (Lines 26-27). The child is happy in his solitude and develops a relationship with the birches that is respectful, careful, and joyful. As the speaker relays the boy’s story, he yearns to return to this experience of innocence and joy, saying, “So was I once myself a swinger of birches. / And so I dream of going back to be” (Lines 41-42). Aging has changed the speaker’s outlook on life, which he now sees as “a pathless wood” (Line 44), confusing and without direction, that brings pain and weeping. As he observes the birches, and meditates of the boy, he wants to return to the feeling of childhood, which he interprets as the ability to “get away from earth awhile” (Line 48), and experience the dynamism he had in his own, birch-swinging days.
Life Versus Death
At the end of “Birches,” Frost touches on the possibility of death in the face of suffering, and then explicitly rejects it. In the middle of his musings, he realizes that someone might interpret his claim of wanting to “get away from earth awhile” (Line 48) as suicidal, and so he clearly articulates the opposite, saying “May no fate willfully misunderstand me / And half grant what I wish and snatch me away / Not to return” (Lines 50-52). Despite his description of the suffering and pain in his adult life, the speaker asserts, “Earth’s the right place for love: / I don’t know where it’s likely to go better” (Lines 52-53). For the speaker, both the experiences of suffering and the reprieve from suffering, both the “going and coming back” (Line 58), make up a worthwhile life; he has no desire to leave the earth, with all of its natural beauty that he has taken such care to describe in the poem.
Heaven Versus Earth
Frost takes a perhaps controversial stance, at the time that “Birches” was published, advocating that “Earth’s the right place for love: / I don’t know where it’s likely to go better” (Lines 52-53), suggesting that the human world is better than any heaven or afterlife. Throughout the poem, he describes how the climbing and swinging of birches offer a closeness to heaven. In the storm, the breaking through the ice creates the sense that “the inner dome of heaven had fallen” (Line 13), and the speaker notes that to climb a birch tree is to climb “Toward heaven” (Line 56). Being close to heaven without accessing it is sufficient for the speaker, as he believes that in approaching it and then returning to the earth he will experience love, joy, and beauty. He emphatically makes clear to the reader that he does not want to die, saying, “May no fate willfully misunderstand me / […] and snatch me away / Not to return” (Lines 50-52). Rather, he hopes to regain some of the joy and mystery of his childhood birch-swinging experience, both in “going and coming back” (Line 58).
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By Robert Frost
