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Saturday, October 2, 2010

1.3 Poetry Symbolism: God's Garden

The link for the poem can be found here: http://www.ketzle.com/frost/godsgarden.html


Robert Lee Frost was an American poet and playwright whose work mainly focused on American rural life. He was born on March 26, 1874 in San Francisco, California and died on January 29, 1963 in Boston, Massachusetts. He published many poems and plays throughout his lifetime and won four Pulitzer prizes for Poetry.[1] The poem I chose was God’s Garden and it was written in 1898.[2] This poem fits the supernatural theme of the class because it speaks about God and the Garden of Eden.
Symbolism is all around us in everyday life and is very evident throughout this poem. The title is symbolic because refers to the biblical Garden of Eden in which the first humans Adam and Eve were placed to live after their creation. In the first stanza there are several examples of symbolism. These are: pathway, fig trees, overgrown, home and end. A pathway is a route to something and thus in the context of this poem means the one pathway leading to God and heaven. Fig trees are symbolic in this poem because figs represent righteous or unrighteous characteristics that a person may display.[3]  Overgrown in this poem means not obstructed and thus it means they had a clear they had a clear path or way to God. A home is where people dwell, and the meaning of home in this poem is heaven. End means a conclusion of something and symbolizes where God dwells. If they continue on the narrow pathway then their way to God and heaven would be secure.
The second stanza of the poem also contains examples of symbolism. These are: master, gold flowers, bright flowers, thorns, blood, bone and life’s night. A master is someone in charge of something or someone, so the word master in the context of this poem is referring to the Devil or someone who misleads others. Gold flowers symbolize the distractions of wealth and the forbidden fruit spoken of in the Genesis account. The word bright is also symbolic because it is something that they could not miss. Frost using the word bright to describe the flowers was very important because even if they ignored them for a little while they would still be there when they looked again. Thorns in the context of this poem mean the true nature or true meaning of something. Av’rice is the shortened form of avarice which means insatiable greed for riches or miserly desire to gain and hoard wealth.[4] Blood is a very symbolic word in this poem and means the truth that leads to spiritual life or death.[5] Bone in the context of this poem means the physical human body. Finally life’s night can be understood to mean the end of one’s life or death.
The third stanza of the poem contains three examples of symbolism. These symbols are eyes, glitter and narrow way. Eyes are very symbolic in poetry because they represent a window to the soul. In the context of this poem, eyes mean the mind and heart and ultimately the soul. Glitter in this part of the poem could mean God’s glory or approval. The narrow way means the way that leads to heaven or obeying God’s commands.
This poem can be interpreted using the symbols above in two ways. One way can be paralleled to the creation story in the book of Genesis. God created Adam and Eve and placed them in the Garden of Eden, which the poem calls a beauteous garden, and instructs them to tend to the flowers and the garden. He however warns them to keep the pathway open. This means that they should keep the pathway to God and heaven open by staying on the narrow pathway, i.e. not eating the forbidden fruit. If they did this they would eventually reap the benefits and enjoy a heavenly home and a good relationship with God. Frost did not specifically state this as in the creation account. Instead in the poem he wrote it as the keeping the pathway open but in reality it means the same thing and represents obedience to God. The other way that this poem could be interpreted is showing what the pursuit of riches can lead to. When one is plagued by avarice and greed then they are heading down a path to destruction. At the end of their life they have not found the true meaning of life as a result of their seeking wealth and die unfulfilled and lonely.
The fig trees in this poem represent God telling mankind to cultivate righteous characteristics and keep on the narrow pathway. Fig trees are very symbolic in this poem because after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden they covered their nakedness with leaves from the fig tree. In that case they cultivated unrighteousness.[6] Gold flowers play a very big part in the poem because they are the distractions that ultimately led to mankind’s demise. The Devil tricked Eve into eating the forbidden fruit and she gave some to Adam, and they gained the knowledge of good and bad. This represents their disobedience to God and subsequently why they were lost, helpless and alone at their lives’ end.  Bright is very important in this poem because in the creation story the tree of the knowledge of good and bad was placed in the middle of the garden. Likewise, the bright flowers were put in a central spot on the pathway in order to distract them. Thorns are very symbolic in this poem because the gold flowers seem harmless on the outside but in reality they are quite dangerous. Mankind has forgotten the need to stay on the path and has instead followed after wealth with an insatiable greed and has been misled. Poisoning blood and bone means killing the body and soul. Thus the greed has corrupted them and led them astray from God.
The poem is warning us against seeking the glamor of wealth and disobeying god’s commands because it corrupts mankind. It is encouraging us to look to the glory of god instead of wealth. The bible book of Matthew speaks of the broad and narrow ways of life. The narrow path leads to everlasting life while the broad path leads to eternal destruction. In relation to this poem then we can see why in the third stanza the speaker urges us to resist the temptations of the gold flowers placed before our eyes and instead stick to the narrow pathway because it is the only way we will be saved and receive our heavenly reward. The tone of this poem changes throughout. The first stanza has a happy tone when the narrator speaks about God making a beautiful place and putting mankind to live in it. The second stanza speaks about the Devil misleading mankind and thus has a sadder tone. Finally the last stanza has a tone that warns us to resist the glitz and glamor and focus on Godly things in order to receive the reward of heavenly life.


[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Frost#Pulitzer_Prizes
[2] http://www.ketzle.com/frost/
[3] http://unravelingfalseimages.com/glossaryofsymbolicwords.aspx
[4] http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/avarice
[5] http://unravelingfalseimages.com/glossaryofsymbolicwords.aspx
[6] http://www.mythencyclopedia.com/Fi-Go/Fruit-in-Mythology.html






1 comment:

  1. Now THAT is what I call a great blog entry. You go girl!

    ReplyDelete