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'Mending Wall, And Lyndall Hough'sStopping By Woods'

Decent Essays

Discoveries often demand the re-evaluation of an individual’s outlook on life, a process in which reconsidering perspectives allows one to make sense of the world and come to terms with confronting realities. Two composers who’s work reflect this notion are Robert Frosts poems ‘Mending Wall’ and ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’, and Lyndall Hough’s short story ‘The Shooting Kid’. Each text explores the varied emotionally and intellectually significant discoveries on individuals and their ability to allow for reconsideration of personal perspectives and understand their place in the world. Self-discovery is often accompanied by internal metacognitive dialogue due to its ability to allow individuals to re-evaluate their outlook on life and develop a better understanding of the world. Frost’s ‘Stopping by Woods’, his 1922 lyric poem provides a pre-eminent example of an internal monologue. Use of first person present tense language allows for the reader to relish the quiet splendour of the dark woods and ponder, if only for a moment, the allure of escaping indefinitely from the exhausting world of people and promises. The confronting and emotionally significant discovery of the persona’s morbid attraction to oblivion is conveyed through the furtive tone in the first stanza “He will not see me stopping here/ to watch this wood fill up with snow” suggesting a feeling of delight that may be associated with the deep, dark woods. Potent connotations of the words ‘dark’,

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