REFLECTION OF LOVE IN POEMS ASKING FOR ROSES AND GOING FOR WATER
on
ISSN: 2302-920X
E-Jurnal Humanis, Fakultas Sastra dan Budaya Unud
Vol 14.2 Pebruari 2016: 73-79
REFLECTION OF LOVE IN POEMS ASKING FOR ROSES AND GOING FOR
WATER
By
Ni Wayan Wedari
email: [email protected]
English Department, Faculty of Letters and Culture, Udayana University
Abstrak
Studi yang berjudul Reflection of Love In Poems Asking For Roses And Going For Water ini membahas tentang refleksi cinta dalam dua puisi karya penyair Amerika Serikat, Robert Frost. Dua puisi ini menunjukkan perjalanan yang penting dalam hidup Frost yang berhubungan dengan sudut pandangnya dalam meraih suatu hal yang sangat bermakna dalam hidupnya. Tema dalam dua puisi ini terefleksikan dengan dua hal yang berbeda namun sama-sama mengandung arti cinta yang sangat alami dalam kehidupan manusia. Data yang digunakan dalam studi ini diambil dari kompilasi puisi Robert Frost berjudul A Boys Will (1913) dan dianalisis secara teknik dokumentasi berdasarkan teori dari Arp dan Johnson (2006) mengenai unsur intrinsik dalam puisi.
Hasil dari penelitian studi ini menunjukkan bahwa tema dan unsur intrinsik dalam karya puisi menjadi bagian penting dalam merefleksikan ide-ide dalam dua puisi ini. Frost menggambarkan karakteristik dari teknik-teknik yang digunakan oleh penyair pada masa tersebut melalui penggunaan unsur intrinsik seperti diksi, pencitraan, rima kata kiasan, dan simbolisme. Dari analisis tersebut, esensi cinta yang direfleksikan oleh Frost mengandung hal yang sangat bermakna dalam kehidupannya sebagai seorang penyair.
Kata kunci : puisi, unsur intrinsik, cinta
Love is the one of significant concerns of Robert Frost’s mind. This experience became the subject of his poetry and reflection of his life. By the time, he often comprehends and experiences love in every respect within his natural and simple way of life. Frost’s wife, Elinor Miriam White became the major inspiration of poetry during his lifetime. Besides, the exploration and discovery of love is supported by his awareness of growing up in the rural life in New England. Frost devote all of his experiences through his poetry, the beautiful images of the life, images of childhood imagination, struggle of love, his romantic feeling to his wife, etc. In understanding the reflection of poetry, the readers have to consider about the 73
theme of the poem first. It deals with the topic or major idea which broad to cover the entire poem, therefore theme becomes very important in analyzing poem. Intrinsic elements such as imagery, figure of speech, rhyme, tone, diction, and symbolism became the significant elements which related with meaning of poem itself. Therefore, this study discusses theme, intrinsic elements and reflection that found in two poems of Robert Frost.
There are three problems that appeared in this study. The following questions are put forward as the problems of this study, as follows:
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1. What are the themes of poems Asking For Roses and Going For Water?
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2. What are the intrinsic elements that poems Asking For Roses and Going For Water contain?
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3. What kinds of love reflected on the poems Asking For Roses and Going For Water?
The aims of this study as follows:
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1. To determine the themes of poems.
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2. To find out the intrinsic elements found in poems Asking For Roses and Going For Water
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3. To find out kinds of reflection of love in poems Asking or Roses and Going For Water.
The data source of this study was taken from book which contains compilation of poetry entitled A Boys Will. This book is one of Robert Frost’s poetry compilations which was published in 1913. The lyrical and traditional poetic can be found in this book as the characteristics of Frost which is famous at that time. The data were collected through documentation method and they will analyze qualitatively using descriptive method.
Asking For Roses is a narrative poem that describes about a young couple, who are characterized as the poet and Mary. Overall the poet describes the situation and conditions that he perceives while taking journey. First stanza describe about the poet and Mary who took a journey through a forest. They found an abandoned house with many roses in the garden. Second stanza tells about what is going on to the couple, they have a conversation and try to do solve their curiosity, followed by the third stanza where the couple knocks on the door and insult themselves as beggars who expect some roses. The conversation between Mary and the mysterious being happened in the fourth stanzas, and the proverb from the Old Herrick is presented as the key how importance of roses was. The last stanzas the appearance of the mysterious being is presented in shining light and finally gives them boon of roses.
In this poem, Robert Frost use simple vocabulary and colloquial words. Besides, the dialogues were put on by using natural speech patterns in several stanzas. Imagery which is employed in this poem as in phrases “floor littered with glass” and “stands in garden”, it creates a mental image of an abandoned house in a remote area. In the line “so we must join hands in the dew coming coldly” tactile imagery is shown and refers to the condition that faced by the couple. The rhyme scheme of this poem is ABAB with no other relation than the rhyme at the end and carries over all six stanzas.
Frost adds some figurative language in Asking For Roses, the following example of the use of personification in this poem is as follows:
There in the hush of the wood that reposes, (third stanza, line 10)
The phrase “hush of the wood” functioned to stimulate the sense of readers. It contains personification that emphasized the human quality to the object that unalive. In fact, the word “hush” here refers to a period of silence, especially following a lot of noise, or when people expects something to happen. Meanwhile, “the wood” refers to an area of trees which is smaller compared to forest. In addition, the usage of “reposes” describe about situation that experienced by the character in this poem. This
personification functioned to represent how the condition of woods without any movement. Frost emphasized meaning of the two objects, hush and wood to create deep meanings of silence and calmness.
Love was reflected in this poem by story of the couple undertake in a journey to searching roses. Frost combines his ideas of love and the portrayal of nature in order to presents his experience and imaginations about love. He depicted some romantic sense, such in line “I pass by that way in the gloaming with Mary”, “we must joint hands in the dew coming coldly”, and “We do not loosen our hands intertwining”. Those romantic senses giving the ideas of love to the readers and interesting to be enjoyed.
This poem overall describe Frost’s experience with his wife, Elinor Miriam White. The struggle of them to find the rose is proved by poet in repeat the word "roses" in all of stanza to emphasize importance of the roses. Frost is implying that people have to ask for something, even the simplest things such as roses. Nobody can not just take what they want, however they must fight to something that they really need. This is related with his simple depiction of moral and love at that era. Although Frost categorized as pastoral poet in some literature critics, in some poems he sometimes broke that opinion. The representation of love to his wife is appeared as an evidence that he learned much about human nature through living in New England, especially his own feeling to loving his beloved wife.
In the poem Going For Water, the characters are placed as children. The adventurous journey were taken by children undertake the mission to searching brook in autumn night. In the first stanza, the poet describes the condition around the children who ran out from their house. Those children felt the coldness air in autumn night but they were not scared because knew how to protect themselves and they thought that he nature were owned by them. The struggle of children who were looking for a brook is explained in the second stanzas. They ran away and enjoying the atmosphere at night happily, followed by third stanzas which describe the children stopped their step in the wood. The line “Like gnomes that hid us from the moon,” was describing the imagination of a creature who called gnomes that created by the children. Love and
caring between the children is described in fourth stanzas. The protective instincts of children is presented by the line “each laid on other a staying hand” which suggests that they think alike with their protective instincts. In the last stanzas, the descriptions of the brook indirectly explained by the poet. This stanza creates a melancholic feeling after the children saw the brook.
Robert Frost still remains using simple vocabulary and colloquial words. His use of precise language allows him to create concrete sensations and emotions in the reader, establishing the poem’s mood and contributing to its theme. Frost also broke the traditional rule in making this poem. The end rhyme scheme of this poem is (ABCB) in all stanzas except for the second stanzas which different and goes like (ABBB). It allowed the feature of poem more flowing and natural.
The appearance of figurative language such as alliteration creates a connection or contrast between ideas. The following is alliteration that found in this poem such as:
The well was dry beside the door, (first stanzas, line 1)
And so we went with pail and can (first stanzas, line 2)
And by the brook our woods were there (first stanzas, line 8)
Phrases “well was”, “we went” and “woods were” known as alliteration in this stanzas. The repetition of the initial sounds in consonants “w” both in two words producing a harmonic sound effect and made the readers’ concentration will be dominant in those phrases. In other words, the phrase “well was” as same in the second line in the phrase “we went” and third line “woods were” became the main focus of this line and invite the attention of the readers.
The two symbols which depict sadness and disappointment were pearl and blade. Pearl is symbolized as the human soul, inner beauty, perfection, purity, or tears. However silver blade symbolize as sharpness or violence. It symbolizes the disappointment of the children and their spiritless because they could not reach their expectation through the journey. Symbol of “water” represents symbol of something
that valuable in human’s life. In this poem, it symbolizes basic necessity of human body which is used for drinking, washing and known as the source of life.
The existence of love between the children takes an important thing as the feelings of friendship. The feelings of warmth and closeness towards children in as the character in this poem were found such in the stanza:
Each laid on other a staying hand (fourth stanza, line 17)
To listen ere we dared to look, (fourth stanza, line 18)
And in the hush we joined to make (fourth stanza, line 19)
We heard, we knew we heard the brook (fourth stanza, line 20)
It can be seen that the power of liking or often called as friendship is depict as the kinds of love that seems very natural, universal, and obtained from possessive feeling.
Frost deals with the topic that having been something he learned a lot about growing up in New England. In some sources, it was stated that Frost has been take a job as school teacher in New England. Definitely he experienced the children life by observed how children or man runs over nature within his deep respect of nature. Through this poem, he describes children imagination which is interesting and it could take them to new experience to associate their feelings and the ability to having friendship. The strong power of imagination can provide children with hope and disappointment when the things of their imagination are not real. Precisely, Frost represented different realms of children mind by his own insight.
The different concept of love that represented in Frost’ poems are mostly come from his life experiences and the influence of living. The style of his writing is very simplistic; he often wrote dialogue in his poetry using natural speech patterns, with a certain aspect of form and phrasing. From the most ideas of Frost’s writing, the reflection of love between the human were became the interesting ideas. The ideas of romantic love and friendship were drawn as the result of the closeness relation between 78
the human, whether couple, friend, spouse etc. The ideas of romantic love in Asking For Roses represented how the love and power or physical love that found in a relationship while in Going For Water the representation desire for caring beyond the break up the sexual relationship.
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7. Bibliography
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Burns, Alan. 2002. Thematic Guide to American Poetry. USA: Greenwood Publishing Group.
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