Symbolism In Robert Frost's 'Acquainted With The Night'

“Acquainted with the Night” In Robert Frost 's, “Acquainted with the Night,” Frost uses symbolism to expand his feelings of hopelessness, suffering, and injustice by writing predominately in images using poetic elements to reiterate depth and occurrences through repetition and punctuation. In analyzing “Acquainted with the Night,” Frost uses symbolism to relate the vast darkness of the night with inner turmoil deepening the desolation of himself. Double-voiced wording relates symbolism and imagery by associating charge words like “watchman,” “luminous clock,” and “time” with Frost 's own demise relevant to the lonely night. Frost details, symbolism and imagery with poetic elements, such as personification and synecdoche to make alienation more tangible, interrelating observations and emotions fulfilling the entirety of the poem. Frost minimizes adjectives, choosing concrete nouns to relate emotions through imagery. The theme of anguish and grief continues with Frost 's writing style of rhyming, spacing, and repetition. Frost 's “Acquainted with …show more content…
In Frost 's “Acquainted with the Night,” he uses a writing style, combining perfect rhymes and slant rhymes, forming an easy flowing melody to build tension between sound and the poem 's literal meaning. Frost develops a timeline with punctuation emphasizing “I have walked out in rain—and back in rain” (2). The punctuation forces a pause, making it evident depression is reoccurring. Lines including word repetition “I have...” create a framework of tragic experiences leading to Frost 's depression or suicide. By using three lines per stanza and ending the last stanza only with two lines and “I have...” the symbolic repetition of depression is emphasized with being “acquainted with the night” (1, 14). By rhyming, repeating, and pausing all feelings of death and depression are fully