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Loneliness In Robert Frost's Desert Places

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"Desert Places" by Robert Frost 1. The most evident themes of "Desert Places" are how societal pressures and expectations restrict the individual and fosters loneliness and isolation. Another theme is how chosen, internal isolation and loneliness is a crushing struggle between the individual and society. In the poem, the woods and snowy fields, often referred to as deserts, which are famously desolate, represent barren, empty society and the weeds and "...animals smothered in their lairs", would be the people in the society. Frost's proclamation that he is too, "...absent-spirited to count;/ The loneliness includes me unawares", after implying the existence of a restrictive society by using harsh winter imagery that in literature usually …show more content…

The same theme of how societal pressures and expectations restrict the individual and fosters loneliness and isolation. which manifest as Ethan not being able to pursue true love and stay trapped in a frozen, isolated town married to a woman he hates because of society's disapproval of divorce and the pressure to take care of those perceived to be good and ill, like Zeena. He married Zeena in the first place because after his mother's death Ethan was terrified of being lonely. Ethan also feels isolated and lonely as reflected by Starkfield's cold, harsh climate, just like in "Desert Places" because he had to give up his dreams of college to stay in Starkfield and take care of his sick wife. After the "smash-up", he is now isolated from society and even more entrenched in his internal loneliness, fitting the second theme of "Desert Places", which is how chosen, internal isolation and loneliness is a crushing struggle between the individual and society. "Desert Places" also ties in with another closely related theme of grave consequences arise from having to live society's rules or breaking them as Ethan must live, crippled, with his wife and brief mistress as punishment for his adultery. Similarly, Robert Frost in "Desert Places" must suffer his own loneliness against societal

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