Shirley Thomas
English 125: Introduction into Literature
Maria Rasimas
May 18, 2014
Frost (2010) “There are three things, after all that a poem must reach: the eye, the ear, and what we may call the heart or the mind. It is most important to all to reach the heart of the reader”. Have you ever made a snowman on a cold winter day with snow falling so heavy it looked as if a blanket had covered the city? Did you ever want to take the snowman into the house out of the cold? The boy at the window crying looking out t at the snowman thinking he is cold and needs to come into the house to get warm.
[Seeing the snowman standing all alone in dusk and cold is more than he can bear. The small boy weeps to hear the wind prepare a night of gnashing and enormous moan]. Wilbur, R (1952) I remember as a small child reading about Frosty the Snowman, published in 1950 by Little Golden Books, and how he came to life one day and went into the house and sat in front of the fireplace and melted. Remembering this book is what made this poem so interesting to me, because it took me back to my childhood, which a high point in my life. I was able to relate to this poem because I did not have to decipher the meaning of it. The language was what is used in this modern day time and not the old English language that I have a rough time trying to understand. The boy at the window is too young to understand that the snowman is not a living, breathing form; therefore he is not able to understand that the snowman is basically water and that he does not have feelings like humans.
The boy at the window only know that he sees an object that resembles a human, and this is probably because the snowman has eyes, a nose and a mouth and that he is wearing some clothes that the child is able to relate to as being clothes for humans. The boy do not realize that the snowman is touched about the way he is showing concern thinking the snowman is cold and needs to get out of the snow. But he also knows that if he goes inside to where it is warm he will melt more than just a single tear drop. [ The man of snow is, nonetheless, content, Having no wish to go inside and die, Still, he is moved to see the youngster cry. Though frozen water is his element, He melts enough to drop from one soft eye a trickle of the purest rain, a tear ]. Wilbur, R (1952) It is interesting to compare this poem with the original Christmas story