Snow

As a stream-of-consciousness poem, “Snow” isolates distinct feelings conjured by the poet’s mind associations. The breaks in time and place stress this, as the poem doesn’t follow a coherent realistic progression. Instead, the image of snow connects three distinct scenes: The first scene is the two brothers walking through the field and looking at the snow angels. The second scene is the two brothers walking atop the frozen lake. The third scene is the speaker and his neighbor shoveling together.

In the first scene, the snow has already fallen and is presumably fresh because children have made snow angels in it. In the second scene, there is technically no snow, but the frozen lake mimics the image of snow in the other stanzas, as snow is a type of frozen water. The frozen lake suggests the cold has been around for a while, implying whatever snow there is has been falling for some time. Finally, the third image contains the speaker and his neighbor shoveling. This would suggest the snow has already fallen, but the imagery of this section shows that the snow is still falling. The metaphor “A room with the walls blasted to shreds and falling” (Line 14) shows this.

The point of these distinct stages of snowfall is to show the passage of time. However, the passage of time in this poem is irregular; there is no set progression here. Instead, the poem jumps between vague moments during the winter in this unnamed place. The unnatural, strange movement through time echoes the unnatural and strange interaction between characters in the poem, as well as the unnatural, strange style of the poem. Whether the point of this is to disorient the reader or to suggest some deeper theme is up to the reader, but traditionally, stream-of-consciousness poems like this use their disjointed structure to suggest connections between scenes.

Because the connection between the scenes is snow and its various stages, the poem explores change or malleability. Just as the snow falls, is disturbed by humans, and freezes, people and relationships also change. The relationship between the brothers, for example, evolves as the individuals within the relationship evolve. As the speaker, who is the older brother, gets older, he shapes the evolution of his younger brother. The speaker’s fascination with violence (the shot angels and blasted walls) and broken imagery (the dissolved angels and shredded walls) influences the younger brother, who the poem suggests is innocent (exemplified by his belief in the speaker’s story).

There is a contrast between the two brothers. The older brother invokes his imagination in a cold, macabre way, telling the younger brother an imaginative story full of violence and death. However, the younger brother seems oblivious to the dark nature of the speaker’s story; instead, he exists within the poem in a whimsical state of innocence. He believes the tale, but he focuses on its logical progression instead of its disturbing parts. He asks who shot the angels and why they were on the farmer’s property, not why someone would shoot angels. The contrast between the innocence of the younger brother and the darkness of the older brother connects to the imagery of the snow and the ice. On the one hand, the scenes in the poem are full of bright, reflective, white, and pure imagery: snow, ice, a winter day. However, the snow brings coldness, and it freezes the water. The outdoors, which should be marked by openness and freedom, become a room that is falling apart, suggesting chaos and claustrophobia.

Looking at the poem’s religious imagery amplifies the contrast. While this guide discusses the religious imagery later, the use of the name Seth at the beginning of the poem is telling. In the Bible, Seth is the third child of Adam and Eve, born after their second child, Cain, killed their first child, Abel, committing mankind’s first murder. In the Jewish tradition, Seth is almost a replacement for Abel, and he is the patriarch of the line of Noah, making him the de facto father of mankind (Hirsch, Emil G., et al. “Seth.” Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 11, 1906, p. 207.). As the older brother, the speaker represents either Cain or Abel. The poem suggests that the older brother is more indicative of Cain, as death and falling angels guide him. He represents the darker path humanity could take while the younger brother, unfettered by his older brother’s dark fascinations, represents the light path.

Despite the many interpretations of “Snow”, the poem is using religious and natural imagery to touch on the duality of mankind. The poem does not comment on this dual nature, though; instead, it simply presents it as if examining two sides of a coin. Because of the abstract nature of the poem’s style, its meaning is entirely subjective.