The Othered Nature in “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”——A Postcolonial Reading of “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”

Hu Ji (University of Szeged，Szeged Hungary 6720)

Abstract: “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” is one of the most famous masterpieces of Robert Frost, an famous American poet. It is about a weary journeyer stopping by the wood to contemplate over death on the “darkest evening of the year.” In my opinion, the nature in this poem appears as an opposite of human and it is portrayed as an “other” to humanity in terms of Postcolonial criticism.

Key words: Robert Frost; Postcolonial criticism; other

“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” is one of the most famous masterpieces of Robert Frost, an famous American poet of . He lived in New England area and this poem appeared in New Hampshire at first. It is a lyric poem in iambic tetrameter quatrain, and it is about a weary journeyer stopping by the wood to contemplate over death on the “darkest evening of the year.” (Frost 275) Here the woods as a part of nature are symbol of death; the lake is frozen and the evening which “is full of easy wind and downy flake” is the darkest.The nature in this poem which appears as an opposite of the people is depicted negatively by Robert Frost to a large extent. From a point of view of postcolonial criticism it is an“other,” while people are the proper “self”. In other words,Robert Frost is othering the woods.

In postcolonial criticism the colonizers assume “their superiority contrasted with the alleged inferiority of native(indigenous) peoples, the original inhabitants of the lands they invaded.” “Native people were defined as savage, backward,undeveloped…The colonizer saw themselves at the center of the world; the colonized at the margins.” “This practice of judging all who are different as inferior is called othering,and it divides the world between ‘us,’ the ‘civilized,’ and“them”—the “other”—the ‘savages.’ The ‘savage’ is usually considered evil as well as inferior (the demonic other).But sometimes the ‘savage’ is perceived as possessing a‘primitive’ beauty or nobility born of closeness to nature(the exotic other). In either case, however, the ‘savage’remains other and therefore, not fully human.” (Tyson 366)

Judged from above my postcolonial interpretation of Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” might sound odd at first. How can something nonhuman be othered when othering is the act of treating a human being as if he or she were subhuman? However, othering isn’t a practice limited to human beings. Animals can be othered, as it they were in the past when cats were thought to be in the employ of witches, and wolves were thought to be demonically possessed. And nature as a whole can be othered, as it was when Puritan settlers in New England believed that the wilderness surrounding their towns and villages was Satan’s territory, filled with demons and devils and evil spirits of every description. In other words,when we demonize nonhuman living things—a species of animal,a wilderness area, a type of storm, or nature as a whole—we are, in effect, othering them. We are relating to them as if they were not merely nonhuman but antihuman. In order to do this, we imagine that these natural elements have the same kind of selfhood or will or consciousness that humans do. That is, we personify them: we imagine that they are human-like, capable of human feelings and behavior. And then we imagine that they are consciously and deliberately “against us.”

We see this attitude frequently revealed in the language of Western exploration, such as the English and European exploratory voyages to the Americas and the America settlement of the frontier. In both cases, the military language of conquest was used to describe human beings’ relationship to nature: the famous explorers “conquered” the “savage” and frightening oceans just as the American pioneers “tamed”and “civilized” the “savage” and frightening frontier. In other words, the othering of nature is integral part of colonist ideology. So, Colonist ideology others that which is different and, because it is different, frightening. And colonist ideology others that which it wants to treat unjustly or destroy.

As America is heir to the Anglo-European colonist ideology into which the othering is so built, we should not be surprise to find examples of the othering of nature in American literary works. In Frost’s lyrics, nature is often negatively depicted and “appears to be indifferent, dangerous, and even hostile to human beings.” (Huang, Deceptive Simplicity 31) “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” is one example. In this poem the speaker personifies and others the woods, even nature as a whole as an enchanting, mysterious, insidious, dangerous, and even hostile creature. Because of the enchanting, mysterious,insidious, dangerous, and even hostile depiction of the woods:the woods are lovely, dark and deep” here we have an example of a mixture of the exotic other which possesses a ‘primitive’beauty and the demonic other which is considered uncivilized,savage and somewhat evil. The darkness and depth give a kind of uncertainty to the woods, and the coldness associating with snow filling the woods brings the danger of winter coldness.The poem creates an opposition between the "civilized" village,which is positively portrayed, and the "savage" woods, which is negatively depicted. The distance of the village and farmhouse increases the dangerous, othered quality of the woods. And also the response of the little horse which is the speaker’s companion and an image of domesticity, of the familiar things,and of protection in avoiding dangers add to the feeling that the woods is alien and dangerous. “My little horse must think it queer / To stop without a farmhouse near/Between the woods and frozen lake / The darkest evening of the year. /He gives his harness bells a shake / To ask if there is some mistake. (Frost 275) Given the above interpretation of the preceding part of the poem the danger of “sleep” which may be caused by the woods seems like a kind of insidious threat to the speaker.

In Frost’s other poems we can also find the othered nature. In “Storm Fear” we can see the nature depicted as the demonic other. “When the wind works against us in the dark, / And pelts with snow / The lower chamber window on the east, / And whispers with a sort of stifled bark, / The beast, /'Come out! Come out! '—” (Frost 13) In these lines the wind is depicted as a vicious beast. In “An Old Man’s Winter Night”the speaker also depicts the nature outside as the demonic other. “All out of doors looked darkly in at him / Through the thin frost, almost m separate stars, / That gathers on the pane m empty rooms.” (Frost 135) The nature outside here is a kind of vicious, dangerous force.

In the above discussion we have explored the colonialist othering of the nature in “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” and other two poems of Robert Frost. Nonetheless,we don’t mean that the colonialist ideology expressed in the poems is consciously embraced by Robert Frost though Frost always thinks “the world is somewhat cruel.”(Huang, Frost Studies 174) Rather, we intend to say that the othering of nature as a part of the Anglo-European colonialist heritage can influence Robert Frost’s feelings without his being aware that such an ideology is at all involved.

Works Cited：

［1］Frost, Robert. Complete Poems of Robert Frost. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston of Canada, Limited, 1984.

［2］Huang, Zongying. A Road Less Travelled By—On the Deceptive Simplicity in the Poetry of Robert Frost. Beijing:Peking University, 2000.

［3］Frost Studies. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2011.

［4］Tyson, Lois. Critical theory today: A User-Friendly Guide. New York: Taylor & Francis Group, 2006.