Acceptance And Symbolism In Robert Frost's Nothing Gold Can Stay

Life is something that we have to cherish. People have to learn not to be greedy because other people have it worse than they do. Some people have trouble affording food and clothing, while you are disappointed because you did not get the birthday present that you wanted. That is just not right. In the poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay” by Robert Frost, he shows that nothing precious can last forever and you must cherish every moment of your life. In the song “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” by Greenday, the band shows that you have to live in the future, but it is also important to remember your past memories. Both of the texts have a common theme of acceptance. The poem shows that you must accept that nothing will last forever and the …show more content…
The first symbol that “Nothing Gold Can Stay” used is gold. The gold in this poem symbolizes ideal times. The text states, “Her hardest hue to hold.” Frost refers to mother nature as “her.” Hue is a color so this means that Mother Nature cannot stay gold forever. The ideal season which is represented by gold is always going to be changing and that is something that we need to learn to accept. The next symbol that was used in Frost’s poem is nature. According to the text, “Her early leaf’s a flower.” Nature symbolizes the stages of life and how everything in nature is always changing. This line from the poem shows how in spring time, the flowers and buds fall off the trees and bring beautiful leaves. In the song “Good Riddance (Time of your life)” the first symbol that is used is the fork. The first stanza of the song states, “Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road…” The fork in the road represents a decision that you have to make in life. It is most likely an important decision that you might regret later in life. You have to accept your decision and just move on. Another symbol that is used in the song is the dead skin on trial. The text says, “Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial.” The dead skin on trial is a symbol for questioning the choices that you previously made in life. Although you might want to go back and change what decisions you made when you came to a fork …show more content…
The poem uses personification, alliteration, and an allusion. In Robert Frost’s poem, the second line states, “Her hardest hue to hold.” The her is referring to Mother Nature and nature cannot hold a color forever. The seasons and colors are always changing. In autumn the leaves turn red and yellow, and in the summer and spring the leaves are all green. In the winter the ground is covered in white. Since Mother Nature is being given human characteristics of having the ability to hold some thing, this is personification. This line is also an example of alliteration because four of the words start with the letter “h” (her, hardest, hue, hold). The poem also makes an allusion to the bible when Frost writes, “So Eden sank to grief.” It was bad for the first humans to get expelled from the Garden of Eden as it is tragic for the pretty flowers of spring to just turn into leaves. In both of these situations there was an upside. When Adam and Eve got expelled from the garden they learned a lesson and learned to listen. When flowers change to leaves, this shows that winter is officially gone and spring is here. Greenday’s song also uses figurative language such as a metaphor and personification. An example of a metaphor is when the lyrics say, “Hang it on a shelf in good heath and good time”. The shelf is not real but it a metaphorical symbol. The song is saying to hang the