Through symbolism and artistic design Robert Frost illustrates the circle of life, death and life again, a kind of reincarnation of the soul in his poem "Birches." The poem begins with a description of a birch tree under various conditions, symbolic of the numerous hardships experienced by the members of our pretentious society. It then dives into the childhood imagination that we all have and use, to forget about the struggles in life. This poem brilliantly describes how we all suffer from hardships, which cause us to lose faith in our lives and how our innocent imagination can bring us back to show us the love found on earth.
The first image that Frost describes to his readers is a realistic picture of birch trees being bent from an ice storm. He makes the connection that our lives become weighted with stresses of various kinds, which is symbolic of the ice weighing down the heavy branches of the birch tree. The sun that Frost refers to symbolizes warmth and life and
In the final portion of this poem Frost pulls the two images together. He deals with the truth of the bent birches but yet he still reflects back to a boy's innocent childhood experience. The truth in him yearns to get back to carefree life but in order to do that he needs to make sacrifices. These sacrifices are the life we live. Yet Frost illuminates the fear of death without rebirth, "May no fate willfully misunderstand me and half grant what I wish and snatch me away Not to return." If rebirth is not experienced the ultimate sacrifice has been made in vain. "The Earth is the right place for love" Before experiencing death, one must return to the simplicity of life and the childhood naivete that every one of us has experienced. Then once when we find that inner peace on our climb toward heaven we may be gently set back down onto the Earth in which we belong, experiencing a reincarnation of the soul.
provides the birch tree with relief in the same way that warmth and life aides us
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