Explain the imagery in the poem "Desert Places" by Robert Frost.

This is an excellent poem in which the speaker explores the way
that even the most familiar of surroundings can become like "desert places" where he is
overwhelmed with loneliness and questions his own significance as a human
being.

When analysing imagery, it is important to remember that
imagery is defined as pictures that are painted with words that create an image in our mind of
what the author is describing. Often imagery will appeal to the five senses to make that picture
more vibrant.

Thus it is that this poem, which is, after all, about
emotional desolation, creates powerful images of the snow and the way that it erases
characteristics and creates a bleak landscape. Notice how the speaker describes what he
sees:

A blanker
whiteness of benighted snow

With no expression, nothing to
express.

Snow is personified as a
human face, but a face which has "no expression" and "nothing to express." The whiteness of the
snow is "blank" and is shown to erase or cover up or "smother" all familiar features. This
creates an intense feeling of "loneliness," which is reinforced through the repetition of this
word in stanzas two and three. All of these examples combine to create a very bleak picture
indeed of emotional desolation and the desert places that surround us even when we know where we
are.