FREE ESSAY ON ROBERT FROST AND THE DEPRESSION

ROBERT FROST AND THE DEPRESSION

Robert Frost's poetic images and topics changed as a result of the depression. Reflected
in Robert Frost's poetry lie the feelings and concerns of Americans, expressed through
different poetic images and topics. As compared to Robert Frost's earlier work, which
focused on man and nature, Frost's poems during the Great Depression, shift poetic images
and topics to the relationship between man and man. Later in Frost's life, after the
depression, Robert Frost's themes changed another time to man and God. 
Robert Lee Frost was born on March 26, 1874 to Isabelle and William Prescott Frost. In
1885, at age 11, Frost's father died. As a result Robert moved with his mother and sister
Jeanie to Lawrence, Massachusetts. In 1895 Robert married Elanor White, his high school
sweetheart, and began a teaching job at a local school. His first son Elliot was born on
September 25, 1896 followed by his daughter Leslie on April 28, 1899. In 1899 Frost's
mother Isabelle, his first son Elliot, passed away. In 1902, Elanor gave birth to Frost's
second son, Carol. Frost then decided to move with his wife and daughter to a small farm
outside Derry, New Hampshire. In 1905, Elanor had another daughter, Majorie. Following
Majorie's birth in 1907, Elinor Betina was born, but quickly passed away. The death of
Frost's children hit him hard; he tried to be the best father he knew how, spending every
moment with his children. As said by Alan Shucard, "He remained bound up in their lives
and deaths." 
Trying to get away from his life in America, Frost traveled to England in 1912, where he
settled on a small farm in Buckinghamshire. After the outbreak of WWI in 1914, Robert and
his family moved to Gloucestershire. A year later Robert moved again, and returned to
Franconia, New Hampshire. After his move, Henry Holt and Company published A Boys Will
and North of 
Boston. However, in 1938, tragedy overshadowed the news of his publication when after an
operation to remove cancer, Elanor, passed away. From that point on, Robert Frost never
stopped 
blaming himself for Elanor's death. He thought that God was punishing him; and putting
him on trial like Jobe, to show the devil that through all of this treatment, humans
could still be thankful. This view was reflected in his poem [Forgive, O Lord ...]
"Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on thee / and I'll forgive thy great big one on me."
The "great big one (joke) on me" is a illusion to the treatment that Robert Frost
believes he is receiving from God. 1940, just two years after his wife's death, Robert's
son, Carol, committed suicide. After the death of Carol, Robert moved to his final home
in Cambridge, MA. January 29, 1963 Robert Frost died at the venerable age of 88. He saw
all of his children either die or suffer from mental instability.
Robert Pack, a University of Massachusetts professor, compares Robert Frost's work to
life, "...simple immediate surface, but when you look deeper the poem reveals itself to
you." Pack continues to elaborate on Frost's poetic mysteries; he speaks of humor and
trickery that Robert Frost includes in his poems that only a seasoned reader can pick up
on. It is these "dark sayings" and mysteries that maintain Frost's distinctive
"enigmatical reserve." Robert Frost is considered by Pack as one of the greatest American
poets to ever live. Compared to the revered Walt Whitman, or Longfellow. Frost wanted to
be considered a "poet-teacher", to make nature speak with a human voice to readers, and a
"poet-preacher" to dramatize for the reader the divinity in the face of which belief must
be given shape.
Frost said that his main objective in poetry was to say one thing and to mean another,
the definition of a metaphor. Robert Frost's poems are predominantly written in blank
verse, poems without a rhyme scheme typically written in iambic pentameter. Literary
Critic Amy Lowell 
compares Robert Frost's work to that of a rock, "(his work) suggests the hardness and
roughness of New England granite.... unyielding in substance and broken in effect." Wild
Grapes illustrates 
Robert Frosts child hood memories in grape orchards, his use of blank verse is definitely
evident as no rhyme scheme is used, the poem is written in iambic pentameter, and with a
definite flow:
What tree may not the fig be gathered from?
The grape may not be gathered from the Birch?
It's all you know the grape, or know the birch.
As a girl gathered from the birch myself
Equally with my weight in grapes, one autumn,
I ought to know what tree the grape is fruit of.. 
When viewing the surface of Robert Frost's poems, the settings are predominantly New
England. Robert Frost spent most of his life living in New England, and in North of
Boston, his main objective is to, "reveal the disease which is eating into New England
life or at least rural areas."
After understanding the basis and framework of Robert Frost's style, we must now focus on
the Great Depression to explain the correlation between this world-changing event and the
subjects in Frost's poems. In the early 1900's roughly 60% of the country's population
was dispersed out in the country, whether it be farms or towns with a population less
than 2,500 people. This 60% or so of the country's population was hit extremely hard by
agricultural depression beginning in 1920. For some years the cost of seeds, living, and
equipment had gone up, while the meager income of farmer's stayed about the same. Farmers
were forced to operate at a net loss of capital. As their debts increased, crop prices
decreased, along with the cost of shipping their crops to the east for trade by the
railroad. Going unchecked for some time, a large majority of the population was in debt.
They asked the Federal Reserve to increase money production, to increase inflation and,
consequently crop prices. Doing so would have decreased 
the value of their debts and increased their incomes with higher crop prices, giving them
a much-needed boost. Instead, no action was taken, and the country eventually collapsed
with them. 
Another aspect attributed to the cause of the depression is the failure of financial
institutions. There were a growing number of private and public financial institutions,
yet none were regulated by the government. Prices at the stock market were at all time
highs, while people were buying stock on margin. Industrial stocks were selling at an
unheard of 16:1 price to earnings ratio. A 10:1 price to earnings ratio is considered
safe. Then in October 29, 1929 the inevitable hit, and the stock market had the largest
sell off in history. By the end of the year, a net amount of $15 billion was lost. The
withdrawal of American dollars from foreign markets eventually caught up with the rest of
the world, as Europe fell victim to the decrease in revenue. Author Arthur S. Link
explains, "The unstable worlds economy plus Europe's economic dependence on America
proved fatal once American credit dried up."
"The years between the onset of the Great Depression and 1940 were a time of regression
and despair such as the American people have rarely known in their history." The
agricultural depression that started in 1920 resulted in decreased income, personal
values, and purchasing in farms and caused the failure of thousands of country banks and
the loss of billions in savings. By the last quarter of 1930 production was down 26%, and
by midsummer of 1932, production had experienced an unheard of 51% reduction since 1929.
Unemployment around the country had reached more than one fourth of the workforce. People
roamed the streets aimlessly in search of work with ragged clothing and no shoes. Health
centers experienced a 60% increase in malnutrition cases, as there was little starvation,
but widespread malnutrition, because bread lines were forced to feed millions.
In Robert Frost's earlier works, published before 1929, nearly all of Frost's poems
contain references to nature. The poem To The Thawing Wind has several of these
references:
Come with rain, O loud Soouthwester!
Bring the singer, bring the nesters
Give the buried flower a dream;
Make the snow bank steam;
Find the brown beneath the white;
But whate'er you do tonight, 
Bathe my window, make it flow,
Melt the ice as it will go; 
Frost discusses flowers, the snow bank, wind, and earth, just to name a few. In the first
line "O loud Southwester" refers to the winds from the south west, or the jetstream that
picks up the warmth from the Gulf of Mexico to come and melt the snow and expose the
earth beneath the snow, so that the flower can grow. The Mountain is another of the
examples of Robert Frost's natural themes:
The mountain held the town in a shadow.
I saw so much before I slept there once:
I noticed that I missed the stars in the west,
Where it's black body cut into the sky.
Frost puts emphasis in this poem on the size of the mountain and how it blocks his sight
of the western stars in the night sky. From Frost's subject of the mountain, and his use
of stars and sky, natural references again are predominant in the poem.
Just the titles of the poems in New Hampshire, published in 1923, reveal the allusions to
nature: A Star in a Stoneboat, Dust of Snow, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. Robert
Frost's poem Spring Pools in West Running Brook is one of the best examples of the use of
natural references:
These pools that, though in forests, still reflect
The total sky almost without defect,
And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver,
Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone,
And yet not out by any brook or river,
But up by roots to bring dark foliage on. 
By all these references to nature one can see that without a doubt nature was a main
theme used in the poetry written by Robert Frost before the year 1929. 
After the onset of the depression Robert Frost enters another phase of his poetry, in
which he shifts his topics from man and nature, to man and man. Dr. James L. Potter,
professor of literature and criticism ant Trinity College, has a coinciding view on the
themes of Robert Frost's poetry, "There are also many poems reflecting an interest in
humanity independent of nature." Two Tramps in Mud Time is an example of this man and man
relationship, in which the subjects confront each other:
Out of the mud two strangers came
And caught me splitting wood in the yard.
And one of them put me off aim
By hailing cheerily "Hit them Hard!"
I knew pretty well why he dropped behind
And let the other go on a way.
I knew pretty well what he had in mind:
He wanted to take my job for pay. 
The use of imagery from a confrontation is unavoidable, but in no place in this excerpt
is a natural reference made. This poem was published in 1936, a mid-point of The Great
Depression which America had been in for more than 6 years. 
It is quiet obvious that the Depression was a time of great change for him mentally as
shown in his writing. The switch of his general images and main topics witch is
unarguably due to the depression. 
Bibliography
Works Cited
Frost, Robert. A boy's will. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1915. 
Collins, Mike. Robert Frost. Chicago: Hartsfield, 1979.
Frost, Robert. North of Boston. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1915.
Frost, Robert. Mountain Interval. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1920.
Atlantic Unbound. 5 Sep. 2000. Poetry Pages. 15 Nov 2000. 
Ketzle, Jeff. 8 Aug 2000. Home Page. 15 Nov 2000