Robert Frost takes our imaginations to a journey through wintertime with his two
             poems "Desert Places" and "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening". Frost
             comes from a New England background and these two poems reflect the beautiful
             scenery that is present in that part of the country. Even though these poems both
             have winter settings they contain very different tones. One has a feeling of
             depressing loneliness and the other a feeling of welcome solitude. They show
             how the same setting can have totally different impacts on a person depending on
             their mindset at the time. These poems are both made up of simple stanzas and
             diction but they are not simple poems.
             In the poem "Desert Places" the speaker is a man who is traveling through
             the countryside on a beautiful winter eventing. He is completely surrounded with
             feelings of loneliness. The speaker views a snow covered field as a deserted
             place. "A blanker whiteness of benighted snow/ With no expression, nothing to
             express". Whiteness and blankness are two key ideas in this poem. The white
             sybolizes open and empty spaces. The snow is a white blanket that covers up
             everything living. The blankness sybolizes the emptyness that the speaker feels.
             To him there is nothing else around except for the unfeeling snow and his lonely
             The speaker in this poem is jealous of the woods. "The woods around it
             have it - it is theirs." The woods symbolizes people and society. They have
             something that belongs to them, something to feel a part of. The woods has its
             place in nature and it is also a part of a bigger picture. The speaker is so alone
             inside that he feels that he is not a part of anything. Nature has a way of bringing
             all of her parts together to act as one. Even the animals are a part of this wintery
             scene. "All animals are smothered in their lairs,/ I am too absent-spirited to
             count". The snow throws its blanket of whiteness o...