Robert Frost A Tree At My Window

2 Pages 439 Words

In Robert Frost’s poem, “Tree at my window,” the author uses imagery to characterize the relationship between the speaker of the poem and the tree outside his window. The tree represents the speaker in both of his conscience and subconscious states. Frost uses phrases such as “my sash is lowered” and “curtain drawn” (line 2-3) to convey that the speaker has let his guard down and given into sleep. The speaker develops a trust and common understanding with this tree with words such as “between you and me” (4). Frost gives this tree a personality so the speaker can have something to relate to himself.
The speaker, now reaffirmed by the security of his friend-- the tree, allows himself to drift off into sleep. This image is conveyed in the line, “vague dream-head lifted out of the ground”(5). The next couple of lines symbolize the speaker in a state where reality and dreams become intertwined. While in this dream state the speaker’s senses are incredibly amplified. Touch, taste, feeling, the sound of “light tongues talking aloud could be profound” (7-8), are all intensified.
In the previous two stanzas, Frost’s attitude towards the speaker is positive. As the third stanza begins, the speaker’s voice becomes sad and negative. It seems as though the speaker is having a nightmare as he and the trees are “taken and tossed”(9). The speaker is “swept” (11) so far away in his dream that he must have the tree to help anchor him and bring him back to reality.
Frost’s attitude towards the speaker changes in the last stanza. This part of the poem really throws off the reader. The speaker’s focus changes from his dream and his connection with the tree to how their paths crossed. Fate brought “our heads together”(13) and “her imagination”(14) made us one. The last two lines are the most interesting. The speaker is commenting on the tree “concerned with the outer”(15), and himself think...