18 pages • 36 minutes read
Robert FrostOctober
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1913A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Leaves
Leaves are a recurring image in Frost’s poem, specifically leaves that have changed due to the progressing season. “Thy leaves have ripened to the fall” (Line 2) is evocative of leaves that are colorful and dry, prone to shedding from their trees at any moment. In the poem, leaves are also described in relation to the leaves on clusters of grapes. The line “whose leaves are already burnt with frost” (Line 19) refers to leaves that have endured a hard frost and are closer to dying because of it.
Leaves have long been associated with humans. The first people, Adam and Eve, covered themselves with leaves, and much like people, leaves are numerous, unique, and undergo a life cycle including birth, aging, and death. It is fitting, then, that Frost uses the symbol of leaves to explore the subjects of time and death when considered in relation to his own mortality (and human mortality at large).
Grapes
In much the same way as he uses leaves, Frost uses grapes, “whose clustered fruit must else be lost” (Line 20), to apply a temporal marker to a physical, natural object. In art and literature, fruit—grapes and otherwise—has been known to represent earthly pleasures and fertility. In Frost’s poem, the grapes appear to represent something intrinsically earthy and human, which is possibly a reference to Frost’s own children. That the speaker specifically pleads for the grapes to be granted more time before the coming change in season—even repeating the sentiment as a refrain—suggests that the speaker is invested in the well-being of the grapes.
Throughout his education, first at Lawrence High School and later at Dartmouth and Harvard, Frost took an interest in the classics. The imagery Frost employs in his poem “October” reflects some of this early influence, as grapes and leaves are symbols that would have been common to literature studied under the umbrella of classics and specifically Greek and Roman literature.
October
Frost uses the month of October to symbolize a turning-point in relation to the seasons as understood within a calendar year. In New England where he spent much of his life, October would have represented to Frost an immense visual and physical change—the change in season being one of greenery and vitality slowly succumbing all at once to death: dying flowers, foliage shifting in color and then lifelessly falling to the ground, and colder temperatures. The choice of October in this poem not only underscores the regional specificity of Frost’s work, but it serves as a graspable metaphor for time in relation to life cycles or death.
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By Robert Frost
