The poem “Directive”, written by Robert Frost, is somehow shot through with what could be referred to as the negative capability, which means being comfortable and content with uncertainties. The poem is rigid in form and as such, reflects its reticence on meaning. It lacks the traditional poetic musicality as it is written in blank verse and is unrhymed with no stanzaic patterns which deny it a steady iambic pentameter. The writer himself is known for his prowess in the narrative hemisphere, most especially in the sense that, he writes quest or journey poems that always lead to dissatisfaction and have symbols of disillusionment and decay. The poem talks about Christianity but in a rather literary way that no ordinary reader could understand. For example, the writer says “there is a house that is no more a house” to reflect a void full of shadows of what it used to contain, a landscape of absences. It reflects the theme of unfulfillment and confusion where the writer suggests Christianity is no longer what it was at first, and Frost chooses to call it “A broken drinking goblet like the Grail.” A statement figuratively coined to refer to the gospel of today.
Frost portrays Christianity in the poem as a lost course and makes an effort of getting down to a spirit of memory that can be trusted in this regard. He, for example, shows how he has a conflict with himself in finding a direction that would lead him to the whole truth. He decides to take a journey to the belated darkness that remains of his religion. In the poem, he talks about a guide who “only has at heart your getting lost” in reference to the “savior” of gospels (Jesus) who according to Frost was readily available to save the thief on the cross by a nod of the head. The words “You must not mind a certain coolness to him” are further used to refer to him who apparently never speaks directly to the children who pray to him. Frost finds it hard to figure out how the same savior has failed to nod his head at everyone else. He says “there is a story in a book about it” which obviously refers to the holy book-the Bible. He goes ahead to say that the gospel is hidden from the “wrong ones” so that they “cannot find it” and this according to St Mark.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Throughout the poem, Frost cuts a frustrated figure that seems to be disappointed in what he once believed to be the true salvation. He appears to wonder why Jesus is depicted as the savior and yet still, he has kept away from everyone and cannot show his face to those who pray to him. He is further confused about what is left of Christianity, once “a house in earnest” but now is just “a Playhouse”, “a belilaced cellar hole” that is “slowly closing like a dent in dough.” He speaks of how the salvation was like a cold spring whose source was so near and yet it’s “cast under a spell so the wrong ones cannot find it.” His whole confusion seems to go around the fact that the religion he was born into is not what it was but just tatters and cannot seem to figure out what step to take next. He is of the idea that maybe one can find their true selves only by choosing to drop and lose what has become of this terrible religion and its gospel. According to him, one can become “whole again beyond confusion” by adopting what remains of the original concept.
In the poem, Frost uses several literary devices and style to pass across his message. The poem has several symbols that the writer uses to pass his message across. The road, in this case, is used to represent the path one has to take to retrace the actual spirit of Christianity. He describes the road as tattered and its surroundings in a desolate condition unlike it was before. Another symbol is the “house” which represents his beloved religion and Frost describes it as a “belilaced cellar hole” to reflect what it has become today. The broken drinking Goblet indicates the state of the gospel in the present world. Metaphors are used in plenty as for instance “Barb and Thorn” or “Ladder road” are images that reflect spring floods and steepness although in retrospective they are used to reflect Gethsemane or Jacob. The “Cedar” is another as it is used to reflect the natural setting of frosts homeland – England but can also be seen to reflect those of biblical Lebanon.
How the landscape is portrayed in the poem helps one to reflect through the writer's mind. For example when he says the road looked as “if it should have been a quarry” we get an idea of what the way to salvation has become. Another set of images wanders the mind from “knees” to the “feet” and down into the “instep arch.” Other than the imagery, the poem reflects a mood of sadness and loss. The poem creates a sense of nostalgia where glimpses of what used to be “pecker-fretted apple trees” suggest fondness and remembrance. The writer then misses all that was when he narrates what Christianity has remained to serve him today. The structure of the poem further reiterates its message as it is written in a rigid form and meter which translates its reserved nature with meaning. The poem lacks any flow as it is a narrative describing a sorry state of the situation at hand. It, in a deliberate manner, resists linear interpretation so as to provide to the reader an experience of being lost and confused in its words. It is a narrative that withholds details likely to give a concrete and complete picture of the situation which leaves the reader wanting to find out more.
“ Directive” is an expertly done work of poetry that through the writer’s confusion with the state of his beloved religion, offers an authentic perspective to the reader about the state of things. The reader can relate and compare the two situations described in the poem with the help of images created in their minds through the graphic nature of the poem. The reader, especially if Christian can see what the religion has become today. The sorry, hypocritical nature of its existence as people no longer use it to get the ultimate goal of salvation. It has been polluted by all that is worldly and only remnants of what used to be of its nature remains. A reader after a deeper analysis gets the point that to live to the religions full potential, they should grab what is left of it and use it for themselves instead of waiting to be fed by someone who does not mean to fulfill its full course.
