Analysis Essay

Prompt: Analyze and discuss at least one element of at least two of the following: one literary work, one film, or one poetic work. In your analysis, provide contextual examples (quotations) and evidence to support your claim.

Work 1: "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost

When most look at this poetic work, most simply think of it as a short tale of the lonely working man who has stopped from his travels to his home to stop and enjoy the blissful moments of watching snow fall in the woods. If this is truly the case, then this man is a greedy bastard. He really shouldn't give a damn about how "beautiful" it may look out there, but rather give his horse a good kick so he can saddle his way home to feed his hungry family. However, through further analysis, it is logical to conclude that this is not the case; and that there are two other possibilities that are far more likely than that previously stated.

Possibility 1

The first of the two possibilities is that the narrator is in fact a hobo. Most support for this claim can be seen in the earliest stanzas of the poem. As Frost writes in the piece, "My little horse must think it queer/ To stop without a farmhouse near" (Frost ll 5-6). This is clear evidence that he is homeless. One may ask "But how? Are you on drugs or something, dude?", and I shall explain. These two lines of the poem explain that the horse feels awkward when stopping by a farmhouse. Why? Because every night, the ominous narrator and his horse go looking for a farmhouse to spend the night in. For the horse, not stopping by a farmhouse is a strange experience, given how the man and the horse have been doing so for who knows how long. Either that, or the horse was just a greedy pampered horse the narrator stole from a rich person with a farmhouse to stop by. The stop without a nice, warm shelter is a utter shock to the horse.

Also, homelessness explains why the man was wandering around in the first place: he was looking for a place to sleep. Apparently, he didn't have much luck finding the favorable cardboard box in town, so he came wandering out into the woods to try and find someplace nice to sleep. Apparently, however, he is not content with sleeping in the woods, as he says: "But I have promises to keep/ And miles to go before I sleep" (Frost ll 14-15), which leads us to believe he will continue searching for a nicer nightly shelter.

Possibility 2

The narrator is Santa. Let's take a look. I the poem, the narrator says, "He gives his harness bells a shake/ To ask if there is some mistake" (Frost ll 9-10). Harness bells are just one of the famous qualities of none other than Santa's Sleigh. Also, the use of the word "horse" earlier in the poem was more than likely just a cover up of his identity; everyone knows how secretive Santa really is. Along those lines, He fails to name his horse and instead uses the oh-so-predictable pronoun, "he". If he had been a good poet, he would have clearly named his "horse", and we would see Rudolph appear in the poem instead of "he".

More evidence that allows us to conclude the narrators true identity is seen in the last lines of the poem. Frost also writes in the poem, "But I have promises to keep/ And miles to go before I sleep" (Frost ll 14-15). Though this quote may be used to support the hobo explanation, it also supports the idea of the narrator being Santa: He promised so many children at the local mall a crapload of pointless gifts (hence his promises to keep), and he has to travel to every single house in the world this very night hence the miles to go before he sleeps).

With the given information and quotations from the novel, it is clear that the narrator is either a hobo or Santa, not the supposed family man most people believe. With this in mind, one can bring up many questions involving Robert Frost: Was he homeless?, Was he Santa!?, and What is his favorite color?. All of these questions have answers that may never be answered, thanks to "stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening".

Work 2: Forrest Gump

Forrest Gump was a moving film starring Tom Hanks that won six Academy Awards including Picture of the Year. This rather surprised me, given how one of the pivotal characters in the story was a complete and total slut. That's right, Jenny Curran, Forrest's lover, was a mega-whore in the movie.

Let's look at what the film provides us with. The first evidence we see of Jenny's overly-sexual appetite is when she is in college. When she is coming back from someplace, Forrest is sitting on the bench, and sees Jenny and some other guy start to "get going" inside of what we assume is the male's vehicle. Later, when Forrest is military boot camp, his friend Jenny appears in a Playboy magazine. So far, examples from the film have shown that Jenny is truly a whore. And, to further strengthen the claim, more evidence arises later. After seeing in her in the Playboy Magazine (which got her kicked out of college, how nice), Forrest stops by to see Jenny playing guitar naked in a strip club. Now if this doesn't make her a whore, I don't know what does. And, on top of that, she is later seen walking of from a sleeping man (who we presume she had intercourse with, hubba hubba) whilst stealing some of his drugs.

Most people would wonder how Jenny got to this stage. I have concluded that it was either: peer pressure, the drugs she took, or she was just born a whore like some girls are. The odds are favored towards the last of the three hypothesized explanations for it.

With this analysis, other questions arise: Why would Forrest like such a filthy slut? and Does Forrest even know what sex is? The underlying of the film brings these difficult-to-answer questions upon it viewers.