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Acquaintance With The Night

This document provides context about the American poet Robert Frost and analyzes his poem "Acquaintance with the Night". It notes that Frost frequently explored complex themes through depictions of rural New England life. The poem describes the narrator's loneliness as he walks the isolated city streets at night, unable to find solace in his depression despite encountering others. Through the use of first person and suggestions that the cry he hears is not meant for him, the poem emphasizes the narrator's complete isolation and inability to interact with others due to his depression, leaving him solely "acquainted with the night."

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Saurav Bhatia
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163 views2 pages

Acquaintance With The Night

This document provides context about the American poet Robert Frost and analyzes his poem "Acquaintance with the Night". It notes that Frost frequently explored complex themes through depictions of rural New England life. The poem describes the narrator's loneliness as he walks the isolated city streets at night, unable to find solace in his depression despite encountering others. Through the use of first person and suggestions that the cry he hears is not meant for him, the poem emphasizes the narrator's complete isolation and inability to interact with others due to his depression, leaving him solely "acquainted with the night."

Uploaded by

Saurav Bhatia
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Acquaintance with the night

Robert Lee Frost (March 26, 1874 January 29, 1963) was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and philosophical themes. A popular and often-quoted poet, Frost was honored frequently during his lifetime, receiving four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry. Robert Frost's personal life was plagued with grief and loss. In 1885 when Frost was 11, his father died of tuberculosis, leaving the family with just eight dollars. Frost's mother died of cancer in 1900. In 1920, Frost had to commit his younger sister Jeanie to a mental hospital, where she died nine years later. Mental illness apparently ran in Frost's family, as both he and his mother suffered from depression, and his daughter Irma was committed to a mental hospital in 1947. Frost's wife, Elinor, also experienced bouts of depression. The narrator describes his loneliness as he walks the isolated city streets at night. He has walked beyond the city limits and along every city lane, but has never found anything to comfort him in his depression. Even when he makes contact with another person (such as the watchman), the narrator is unwilling to express his feelings because he knows that no one will understand him. At one point he hears a cry from a nearby street, but realizes that it is not meant for him; no one is waiting for him. He looks up at the moon in the sky and acknowledges that time has no meaning for him because his isolation is unending. This poem is commonly understood to be a description of the narrators experiences with depression. The most crucial element of his depression is his complete isolation. Frost emphasizes this by using the first-person term I at the beginning of seven of the lines. Even though the watchman has a physical presence in the poem, he does not play a mental or emotional role: the narrator, the sole I, remains solitary. Similarly, when the narrator hears the interrupted cry from another street, he clarifies that the cry is not meant for him, because there is no one waiting for him at home. The narrators inability to make eye contact with the people that he meets suggests that his depression has made him incapable of interacting in normal society. While normal people are associated with the day (happiness, sunlight, optimism), the narrator is solely acquainted with the night, and thus can find nothing in common with those around him. The narrator is even unable to use the same sense of time as the other people in the city: instead of using a clock that provides a definitive time for every moment, the narrator relies solely on one luminary clock in the sky. Ironically, since night is the only time that he emerges from his solitude, the narrator has even less opportunity to meet someone who can pull him from his depression. His acquaintance with the night constructs a cycle of depression that he cannot escape. Frost adds to the uncertainty inherent in the poem by incorporating the present perfect tense, which is used to describe something from the recent past, as well as something from the past that is still ongoing in the present. It seems as if the narrators depression could be from the recent past because of the phrase: I have been However, the verb tense also suggests that his depression could still be a constant, if unseen, force. With that in mind, it is unclear whether the narrator will

truly be able to come back to society or if his depression will resurface and force him to be, once again, acquainted with the night.

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