In "There Are Roughly Zones," Frost reflects on the limits of humanity's ability to shape and force its will upon nature. He begins by establishing the tension between the inside of a house—where humans take shelter from the cold of the northern winter—and the outside, where the wind and nature hold power. Frost then shifts to discussing a peach tree that may have died and how humans had brought it far outside of its natural habitat. Thus, it would be folly to blame nature for its death.
The title comes from the idea that while humanity has some ability to shape the world around us, there are rough limits, like zones where the peach will grow and where it will not, for example. In general, Frost is arguing against the idea that civilization can or should expand endlessly or seek to conquer nature. Instead, he suggests a path of finding a way to live in harmony with nature, shaping our environments to suit our needs but only within the bounds of what makes sense given the unchangeable aspects of a given area.
In "There Are Roughly Zones," Robert Frost seeks to mock human arrogance in our approach to nature. The peach tree is the central character in this poem. The humans who planted it in this place, too far north for it to survive, hide indoors where they can deny the realities of nature where they've chosen to live. The peach tree cannot.
Frost points out the ways that these humans will stubbornly blame the wind for killing the tree if it dies in the night's cold wind, as though the wind can betray them for simply being as it has always been. To Frost, the blame actually lies squarely on the people. This northern place is the wind's home, and so it is not the home of the peach tree, and that is simply a truth that cannot be questioned or changed.
In "There are Roughly Zones" Frost explores man's tension with nature. Man always wishes to fight against the boundaries of nature, and often he successfully does so, but sometimes he overreaches himself. The two fight each other, and man's will and determination contends with nature's sheer power.
The opening lines begin by saying "We sit indoors and talk of the cold outside./ And every gust that gathers strength and heaves /Is a threat to the house" (lines 1–3). Already, the conflict between man and nature is established. The people inside discuss an aspect of nature that is undesirable, and the wind fights against the house that people built to fortify themselves against it.
In the next few lines, the people inside think of the way that they have tried to change nature itself. They have a fruit tree that they are worried about. The text says "We think of the tree..../it is very far north, we admit, to have brought the peach" (lines 4-6). The people here care about something that comes from the natural world, but they have attempted to bring it out of its natural habitat, and they have put it in a place that threatens its existence.
The poem considers why man always struggles against nature. It says "what comes over a man, is it soul or mind / That to no limits and bounds he can stay confined?" (lines 7–8). Man's ambition will not allow him to rest or be content with the way the natural world exists. Although "there is no fixed line between wrong and right, / There are roughly zones whose laws must be obeyed" (lines 12–13). In other words, there is no clear boundary about what man can and can't do about nature, but there are some areas that clearly ought to be impossible.
The poem concludes by saying:
The tree has no leaves and may never have them again.
We must wait till some months hence in the spring to know.
But if it is destined never again to grow,
It can blame this limitless trait in the hearts of men.
Men will always struggle against nature because their ambition and their mental capacity know no limits. However, the might of nature will sometimes limit them. Regardless of what men might dream up, they will never know, for example, whether the tree will live or not until nature decides to reveal this mystery to them.
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