Robert Frost's "The Telephone": nature, symbolism, and epiphany

Robert Frost: The Telephone

Frost was very unlike many of the 'modernist' poets of his time. His poetry was not overtly concerned with larger philosophical issues and visions of society. His work was essentially closer to nature and to the heart and dealt with the perceptions of ordinary people in a language and style that was down to earth and more akin to the Romantic view of life.

Always a deep, clear, and broad love of earth, of the physical, has pervaded the poetry of Robert Frost. Turn anywhere among his poems, early or late, long or short, and evidence of this love appears -- with an accuracy that proves a respect for the material used, with a minuteness that proves a human belief in individuality rather than a scientific concern for abstraction, and with an abundance that proves a permanent rather than a passing interest.

Doyle 201)

An analysis of the Telephone reveals Frosts love of the physical world around him. However, an analysis of this short poem also reveals an unexpected symbolic depth of meaning. It is important to note that Frost was concerned with presenting his poetry in the tone and language of the ordinary people of New England. He often used a narrative structure and this poem can at first glance almost be mistaken for prose. However, there is a definite poetic meter used in this poem, usually iambic pentameter.

This short poem shows not only the use of image, structure and dialogue to create atmosphere, but also reveals the love that Frost had for the natural world and physical things. The language of the poem expresses this predilection through the evocative images of natural life and the physical world. The first lines of the poem establish a sense of distance, silence and isolation.

When I was just as far as I could walk

From here today,

There is also a sense of mystery within these lines. We are not told where 'here' is. One interpretation is that 'here" refers to the worlds of everyday facts and activities. This would suggest that the poem evokes a special experience or 'epiphany'. An epiphany refers to an experience which transcends time and place. Epiphanic moments are associated with the Romantic nature poets like William Wordsworth. This view is supported by critics like Martin Bidney. The aspects that he identifies in Frost's epiphanies can be found in the poem.

The strongest epiphanies of Robert Frost manifest a readily recognizable pattern of motions, shapes, elements, colors, sounds, and silences. The motion pattern features two contrasting types of movement frequently appearing together, as if to symbolize the necessary coexistence and interdependence of the two contrasting attitudes they express: solitary questing and community tradition, imaginative loneliness and companionship.

Bidney, Martin)

The central symbols that dominate the poem are the telephone and the flower. As many critics have pointed out there is also a certain amount of ambivalence in many of Frost's poems, which adds to the sense of mystery.

In the poem under discussion the telephone is both a means of communication and well as a symbol of isolation. It is this dual tension between closeness and distance, isolation and the need to communicate that gives the poem its particular internal coherence. The symbol of the telephone is also in a sense the opposite of the flower in that the one is natural and the other manmade. This could also be interpreted to emphasize the distance or void between man and nature in the modern world.

The third and fourth lines of the poem emphasize the idea of silence and separateness.

I leaned on my head

The final lines of the poem create an atmosphere of longing and the desire for contact. The poet carefully constructs his words and phrases to indicate both the difficulty and the desire for communication.

A listened and I thought I caught the word

What was it? Did you call me by my name?

or did you say

Someone said "Come" -- I heard it as I bowed.'

'I may have thought as much, but not aloud.'

"Well, so I came.'

By using questions like "what was it?" The poet implies a sense of uncertainty and distance which adds to the overall mood and tone of longing and isolation. In essence the poem is about communication or the need for contact and intimacy. On one level it can be read as a simple poem about this need for contact. On another level the poem is an epiphany or a symbolic statement about the universal need for communication and a deeper intimacy between nature and humanity or between people and the world around them.