Reluctance Poem Analysis
Reluctance Poem Analysis
Reluctance Poem Analysis
Akshay Wuppuluri
Moosman
IB LA HL
02 September 2021
shoes of the speaker. These words and phrases present a clear picture of the situation in the
poem with words like scraping and creeping as well as hither and thither.
The poem is about the speaker arriving home. They come home after traveling, moving,
and shifting to different places and when they arrive home they don’t expect to see what they
see as the world is left in a surprising state. The world is different as they see snow on the
ground, leaves and plant life have withered away and stopped growing, and the flower that
they long to admire has disappeared. The speaker does not want to acknowledge and accept
this and instead pushes back and tries to get back all that they have lost.
The first stanza talks about the speaker coming home after traveling for so long but
doesn’t seem to be in a rush to get home. They move slowly as they go up the hill and slowly
look at the view. When they see this they realize they are home and that their time of traveling
and adventuring has come to an end. There is lots of imagery in the first stanza as you can
picture the speaker climbing the wall and looking at a view over a hill. There is also the use of
The second stanza talks about the changing of the seasons from summer to fall and
finally to winter. There are leaves from fall that have fallen and have been withered and
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wrinkled. The leaves are kept by the oak tree which is an example of personification. The leaves
then scrape and creep over the hard crusted snow. This is imagery as well as we can clearly see
a picture of leaves being held onto but eventually being let go and slowly going over snow
In the third stanza the speaker thinks of leaving again even after coming back from a
long trip. He questions why he is still there and whether he should “whither.” Here we see the
leaves being personified as they are “blown hither and thither.” This shows that leaves are
given a sense of direction and purpose when they really don’t. There is alliteration with the
In the fourth stanza the speaker wants to push back and reject the idea of winter. They
say that it is treason to man to accept things and let things go. We see the speaker refusing to