Two Tramps in Mud Time
Two Tramps in Mud TimeOn the surface, "Two Tramps in Mud Time" seems to display Robert Frost's narrow individualism. The poem, upon first reading it, seems
incongruent, with some of the stanzas having no apparent connection to
the whole poem. The poem as a whole also does not appear to have a
single definable theme. At one point, the narrator seems wholly
narcissistic, and then turns to the power and beauty of nature. It
is, however, in the final third of the poem where the narrator reveals
his true thoughts to the reader, bringing resolution to the poem as a
single entity, not merely a disharmonious collection of words.
At the outset of the poem, the narrator gives a very superficial
view of himself, almost seeming angered when one of the tramps
interferes with his wood chopping: "one of them put me off my aim".
This statement, along with many others, seems to focus on "me" or
"my", indicating the apparrent selfishness and arrogance of the
narrator: "The blows that a life of self-control/Spares to strike
for the common good/That day, giving a loose to my soul,/I spent on
the unimportant wood." The narrator refers to releasing his
suppressed anger not upon evils that threaten "the common good", but
upon the "unimportant wood". The appparent arrogance of the narrator
is revealed as well by his reference to himself as a Herculean figure
standing not alongside nature, but over it: "The grip on earth of
outspread...
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