Critically examine the poem "old man's death"
Answers
The poem tells the story of the last night before an old man's death. This man is portrayed as being lonely, and without meaning to anyone except for himself. The old man seems to realize this in a certain point in the poem, and decides that he no longer wants to live. He then goes to sleep, however soon after he is disturbed by the shifting of a log.He then shifts, as the log did, and dies seemingly without pain, “still sleeping" as Frost says. The poem appears to have a message to transmit, which can be unveiled through some close reading. There are several reasons which convince the reader that An Old Man's Winter Night
is memorable, impressive, and effectively passes on a moral. Firstly, the reader is engaged into the scene with no information about the old man, which parallels the old man's situation, as neither does he know how he has become what he is: “What kept him from remembering what it was / That brought him to that creaking room was age.