Perils Of Hope

– Analysis Essay, Research Paper

Analysis of “Peril of Hope”

The poem “Peril of Hope,” by Robert Frost is about having hope. The poem speaks about no matter how things are one minute they can always change. Hope, however, is constantly there and will always be there to help get through the tough times until things get better.

Imagery is used throughout this poem to help describe the extent of the boundaries of hope. Hope has endless boundaries in this poem it goes from one extreme to the next. In the first stanza (lines1-4), the poet describes a late fall scene just before winter when all the leaves have already fallen off of the trees. But in the same stanza, he also depicts a beautiful spring day just after all the leaves have come out before all the blossoms appear on the orchard trees. Frost does this to show the extremes in which hope can be found. The second and third stanzas reiterate the same thing as the first four lines but in a more vivid way using color images and images off a frosty morning that brings a chill to the readers spine.

”Peril of Hope,” has a definite from. It is set up in a quatrain form with three stanzas. The poem has a rhyme scheme ABAB, with the last word of every other line rhyming, such as, lines one and three , there and bare, and also lines two and four, between and green. Lines one, two, and four in every stanza all have five syllables, and line three only has four. The poems lines have a stressed syllable followed by a unstressed syllable.

The name of the poem has little significance to the meaning of the poem. There is nothing connecting the poem to the title, except the common theme of hope. The title implies that in having hope a person could put themselves in some type of danger of expecting too much. But, the poem just talks about where and when a person may find hope, which could be anytime and anywhere.

”Peril of Hope” is a wonderful Frost poem that I have liked since the first time I read it several years ago. The name however has never struck me as to being very relevant to the poem even though the name in itself can stand alone and say something. The reason I like this poem so much is the contrasting images it evokes in your mind as you read, from the beautiful spring day to the cold frosty November morning of the first frost.