Sunday, March 23, 2014

In "Bereft" by Frost, what do the words "wind" in the first line and "Word" in the two last lines refer to ?

I don't think there is any reason why we should take these
words to mean anything other than the literal sense in which they are used in the poem.
This poem describes the feelings of a speaker who appears to be "Bereft" by the passing
of summer into the stormy fall weather. The "wind" of the first line therefore appears
to refer to the autumn stormy winds that come, and in this poem stir up the leaves,
making them "hiss" and causing them to "blindly strike" at the speaker's knee, turning
nature into a violent form that is antagonistic towards the
speaker.


Likewise, the "word" that is used three times at
the end of the poem appears to refer to nothing more than the word or the message that
the speaker is isolated, both in terms of being in his house alone, but also pointing
towards his larger emotional and psychological
isolation:


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Word I was in the house
alone


Somehow must have gotten
abroad,


Word I was in my life
alone,


Word I had no one left but
God.



The "Word" is therefore
that this speaker is alone, both physically, but also mentally and religiously, as he
struggles with feeling bereft from someone or something as the seasons map out and enact
his feelings of desolation.

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