"Acquainted With the Night" Sample Essay

Raquel Urquiza

            In Robert Frost’s “Acquainted with the Night,” he uses the setting of the night to represent the melancholy one can encounter. Throughout the poem he demonstrates loneliness and sadness. In doing this, he utilizes parallelism, repetition, and personification. Frost illustrates such emotions that one feels when alone, sleepless, and depressed through all of these.

            Loneliness is the dominant theme of this poem. The poet says, “I have walked out in the rain” (2). This is exactly how one feels when lonesome, as through he or she is out in the cold rain. Why else would any one be out there to accompany an oppressed individual? The narrator feels like he had, “looked down the saddest city lane” (4). When some one is down, whatever the situation may be, he or she believes that their problems are worse than any others’, and thus theirs is the saddest lane. The poem’s speaker states that he is “one acquainted with the night” (1, 14). Sleeplessness ties in with melancholy. Sadness keeps one’s mind racing and unable to rest, and the lack of sleep makes a person upset even more so than he or she is. One can become well-acquainted with the night when here is lack of sleep. All of the emotions that flow through this poem are demonstrated through several literary devices.

            Robert Frost emphasizes certain points with parallelism and repetition, and livens the poem with personification.

                        I have been one acquainted with the night

                        I have walked out in the rain—and back in rain

                        I have out walked the furthest city light

                        I have looked down the saddest city lame.

                                                                                  (1-4)

These are perfect examples of the parallelism that the poet uses. With this, he shows how long the speaker has been going on with out sleep and wandering in the night. It keeps the focus on the narrator and the world as he sees it. This is also repetition and emphasizes that sleeplessness, loneliness, and sadness always return. Frost uses personification give the night life. “I have looked down the saddest city lane” (4) this represent any sad, heart breaking situation by giving a city lane an emotion. He also uses, “I have been one acquainted with night” (1, 14), being that he is so depressed and can’t sleep and becoming “acquainted” with the night. Loneliness and depression are perfectly illustrated in this poem by all of these devices.