Indifferent Earth: The Dual Faces of Nature in Robert Frost's Poetry

Indifferent Earth: The Dual Faces of Nature in Robert Frost’s Poetry

Angom Mangi Singh

Man lives in close proximity to nature. So, man has been experiencing the amazing phenomena of nature. Nature comprises different elements. Everything that occurs in nature, including man himself except for the things made by man, is an element of nature. The elements include rain, snow, wind, wood, trees, mountains, rivers, etc. It is not always true to say that nature is not vicious but benign to man. Sometimes it shows its cruelties to man, making man’s life difficult to survive. Then it is nature that gives shelter to man from its cruelties. Here, the important question is whether nature is man’s enemy or friend? Is man aware of the duality of nature? So, it has become a pertinent fact to do a thorough research to know the interplay between man and nature. Robert Frost is a poet of nature and man. He successfully combines these two throughout his poetry. Frost has presented nature and man’s place in nature in his poems. All of his poems are full of natural imagery. He understands nature and its elements well. In his poetry, he uses natural phenomena as a background and moves toward making human beings and nature no longer exist as a separate entity. The paper focuses on studying man’s reaction to the elements of nature in the poetry of Robert Frost. The paper will also study the unseen forces of nature hidden in the poetry of Frost. 

Keywords: Duality, Friendly, Hostile, Man, Nature