Page 92 - DENG105_ELECTIVE_ENGLISH_II

Unit 7: Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost—Detailed Study and Analysis

Line 15 Notes

And miles to go before I sleep,
• Rats. Our speaker really is in the middle of nowhere, because he’s still got a few miles
to go before he can rest his head on his pillow. He better roll out soon.
• But we feel like we are well acquainted with that feeling of being so far away from
where you need to be that it almost seems easier to just give up and hang out.
Line 16
And miles to go before I sleep.
• OK, so our speaker must really be far from home, because he feels the need to repeat the
fact that he’s got miles to go.
• However, when he says the line a second time, we hear the word “sleep” more clearly
than when we heard it in the line before. Maybe that’s because “sleep” has the honour
of wrapping up the entire poem.
• In any case, this line makes us think of how awesome it will be for our speaker to finally
rest his head on his pillow after such a long trek.

7.3 Figures of Speech

Following are examples of figures of speech in the poem. For definitions of figures of speech,
Alliteration
His house is in the village though (line 2)
He will not see me stopping here (line 3)

To watch his woods fill upwith snow (line 4)
He gives his harness bells a shake (line 9)
Hyperbole
To watch his woods fill up with snow

Metaphor
He gives his harness bells a shake,
To ask if there is some mistake. (lines 9-10)
Comparison of the sound of the bells to a questioning voice that asks whether there is a
mistake
Personification/Metaphor
My little horse must think it queer
Comparison of the horse to a human. Only a human can determine whether something is
“queer.”
End Rhyme
The end rhyme in the poem is as follows:

First stanza, aaba
Second stanza, bbcb

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