Birches by Robert Frost

• American Literature II

• Instructor: Prof. Cecilia Liu

• Group Members: Tom, Christina

Outline

• The Pictures of Birches

• Summary

• Rhymes

• Structure

• Setting

• Themes

• References

The Pictures of Birches

• The silver birch with its characteristic white bark

• http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Betula_pendula_winter.jpg

Summary

1. The birches are bent: by the boy’s swinging or by the storm

2. The boy is swing the birches

3. Climbing a tree becomes a retreat for the adult speaker

Rhymes• Blank verse: a type of poetry,

distinguished by having a regular meter, but no rhyme. In English, the meter most commonly used with blank verse has been iambic pentameter. Source: Wikipedia

Structure• 1~5: The speaker is guessing which factor

causes the bending of the birches.• 6~13: The scenery of snow falling from the

birches.• 14~20: The dragging birches are like girls

throwing their hair to dry. • 21~40: A boy swinger is swinging the birches• 41~59: The speaker sees climbing the birches as

a retreat from the heavy-loaded pressure in life until the branches of the tree could not undertake and then send him back to earth.

Setting

• An outside scenery with birch tree

• Or in his imagery recall in his mind?

(Dramatic Monologue)

Themes

• Swinging birch tree as a transcendent escape

Binary opposites:

• Earth V.S. Heaven

• Boy V.S. Man

• Reality V.S. Transcendence

References

• Sparknote

• http://cgi.sparknotes.com/hlite.rmpl?words=birches&pd=0&page=section8.rhtml&nfs=0&guide=%2fpoetry%2ffrost

• Wikipedia

• Wikipedia