The Importance of Discovering New Perspectives in Robert Frost’s Poems Mending Wall and the Turf of Flowers, and Michael Please’s Film the Eagleman Stag

Humans have the desire to pursue discoveries, as their realisations have the ability to reveal life’s paradoxes which can be simple, yet difficult to see with our own perspective alone. Robert Frost’s The Tuft of Flowers (TTOF) (1915) is a poem which demonstrates the idea that nobody is truly alone. Michael Please’s animated short film The Eagleman Stag (TES) (2010) is a commentary on how our inability to control nature contributed to our feeling of enlightenment. Mending Wall (1914), another poem by Frost, underlines that walls are constructed to protect ourselves, whether they are physical or metaphysical. These three texts hold the similarity of using nature as a catalyst to illuminate discoveries about life which humans long to see and understand.

In TTOF, Frost highlights that nobody is truly alone; something he has learnt from viewing life from a new perspective due to his own discoveries. The poem’s tranquil atmosphere, set up by the lack of distractions in the environment, creates an opportunity for him to use a thoughtful reflective voice to contemplate his beliefs. The simplistic title makes the event sound insignificant, but is really a symbol for natures overpowering potential to provoke our thoughts, which can then lead us to make our own discoveries and form new ideas about life. The persona feels a connection with the other worker, and believes that “I must be, as he had been, – alone.” The isolation of the word ‘alone’ at the highlights the singularity of the people who are physically separated.

However, the persona states that everyone works together, “whether they work together or apart.” This paradoxical statement suggests that emotional or spiritual isolation does not exist when we are bonded with like-minded people. He can “feel a spirit kindred to my own; so that henceforth I worked no more alone,” showing that this experience with the other worker’s metaphysical presence has kept him reassured with the stance that he has developed a strong spiritual camaraderie. Hence, with TTOF, Frost highlights how his new understanding of the world around him – that mateship does not have to be of physical form – is formed due to his persistence to view the world in a simple way.

With TES, Please accentuates his discovery that despite their best efforts, humans cannot control the timelessness of nature, which he does via a simple tweak on his perspective about life. The fear of time passing us by is an inherent trait of mankind which fuels our need to “make moments of our life more weighty.” This idea of making the most our existence is also presented in TTOF which metaphysical relationships were seen as the way of rewarding the curious. The insignificance of humans amidst our environment is underlined by a long shot of Peter, who has the “terrifying sensation that (he is) an inanimate object,” surrounded by many others. Each of these objects represent a different person, and Please employs this setting to highlight that everyone is insignificant, and thus alike to ‘inanimate objects’.

The momentary flicker of light from the box, as it temporarily transforms into a plant like shape is symbolic of the total lifespan of Peter, and is indicative of the briefness of our lives relative to the rest of nature. Moreover, this idea is conveyed when all of the key moments in Peter’s life are compressed into a short montage; a reminder that nature is too influential to control. Our environment is not difficult to get access to, and yet it possesses the quality of allowing us to discover further ideas about life, a feature also identifiable in TTOF, emphasising its overarching impact on our lives. With TES, Please directs the viewers attention to his own perspective and discoveries about life, which is that nature is an timeless power that governs every aspect of our existence.

Frost highlights that walls are being constructed by humans in Mending Wall and justifies this discovery by encouraging us to consider the other perspective. He utilises a direct, conversational tone to create a connection with the reader establishing that barriers, whether physical or metaphysical are found everywhere. This concept of exploiting the abstract to reach a discovery, and hence a new outlook on life is an idea which is also in TTOF, where spiritual communication is emphasised over its physical form, and in TES, where intangible powers are found to govern over life. The walls in Mending Wall are symbolic of the barriers which are constructed by people between human contact and understanding. It acts as a catalyst to present the opposing views of the allegorical persona and his neighbour. This physical object for members of society to see, but for those who see with new eyes from a different perspective, a dichotomy between reason and the rigidity of the mind can be seen.

Frost is thoughtful, raising the point that “before I built this wall, I’d ask to know what I was walling in or out,” as he believes that they can act as a metaphysical barrier which can be obstacles to relationships of mutual understanding. Contrastingly, the neighbour represents solidity and stubbornness, and repeats his belief “good fences, make good neighbour.” The difference between these two types of people is highlighted when frost claims “(his neighbour) is all pine, and I am an apple orchard.” Orchards are cultivated in ordered rows, and this represents his productive, orderly thinking, while the neighbour’s primitive reasoning is likened to a forest only of pine cones, which are often scattered everywhere.

This is a form of natural imagery which is also utilised in TTOF and TES but in a different way; to show how humans are to stubborn to accept alternate perspectives. Nature is simple to view, and with Mending Wall, Frost shows how it is possible to discover new aspects of life by looking at simple things, with a different perspective. Discovery is about seeing things which are not necessarily complicated, in a different angle to understand more about reality. This idea is supported by Robert Frost’s The Tuft of Flowers, Michal Please’s animate short film The Eagleman Stag, and by Frost other piece of poetry, Mending Wall.