FREE ESSAY ON THE MOST OF IT

THE MOST OF IT

"He thought he kept the universe alone," too most people the thoughts of being alone are
very frightening. It is human nature to search for companionship. In the poem "The Most
of It," Robert Frost uses a wealth of strong imagery to tell a story of a person who has
lost his loved one to death and has to suffer the feeling of loneliness and emptiness
created by it.
Frost uses the setting of a lake surrounded by a forest to convey a feeling of peace and
of being alone to the reader. A man is sitting on the edge of the lake, crying out for
someone, his echo being his only company. After time, a buck swam across the lake and
appeared on the shore and abruptly runs into the brush, away from sight. Although the man
only caught a glimpse of the deer for a short moment, it was long enough for him to feel
that he was no longer alone, but had something there, even though it was not tangible.
The clues given to the reader that someone has passed on are the words "wake" and three
lines down, the word "morning." A wake can be many things; one is that it is a vigil that
is held in honor of a person who has recently died. "Morning" can be taken as "mourning"
and be seen as Frost grieving for a loved one.
One also develops the impression that Frost is mourning a great loss, such as a spouse or
soul mate, because of the line, "He would cry out on life, that what it wants/ Is not its
own love back in copy speech/ But counter-love." That quote shows the reader that the man
was alone, so alone, that he "cried out on life" asking for it to give his lost love
back. He doesn't want to love someone who agrees with him wholly, and had no ideas of
their own, but someone who is articulate, and has opinions of their own. He wants someone
he could talk to and love for who they are, not who they try to be. He had this in his
lost love, and now he has no one to share his feelings and emotions with.
He was truly alone in the world. "Nothing came of what he cried," until one day when an
amazing thing happened, something appeared that made him no longer feel so alone.
"Instead of proving human when it neared/ As a great buck it powerfully appeared." This
"buck" symbolizes his lost love, instead of coming back to him in her tangible form; he
realized that she was all around him, no matter where he was. She was always in his
memories, in his heart. He no longer felt alone, but at peace knowing she was in a better
place, but still with him.
Although the poem has rhyme scheme (a,b,a,b,c,d,c,d,e,f,e,f,g,h,g,h,I,j,I,j) it feels
more like Frost is writing a first draft of a story. The last line, "And forced the
underbrush-and that was all." Seems a rather abrupt ending. The buck came and went, and
that was all. It seems as though Frost wanted to say more, but wasn't able to. It also
seems a sad ending, in that the "buck" came into his life and left just as quickly,
leaving only a memory.
Frost does not give a tangible identity to what he was looking for. He uses the term "it"
to describe this thing. He does not know exactly what he wants, so giving it the broad
term of "it," allows for "it" to be anything. Frost is searching for something to fulfill
his empty heart, and he finds that in the "buck." 
In the beginning of the poem Frost is crying out, trying to find something to fulfill his
loneliness. By the end, he has found something to lessen the pain of his loss, but it is
fleeting. Although, it was able to ring Frost to the realization that he was not alone,
but what he was looking for is always around him. 
Frost found what he was looking for, but not until he came to terms with his loss. He
will never be alone again, and he never was in the first place, for he had the memories,
of his wife. Those memories will always remain the same and will always keep her in his
life.