En Route Essay

D. C Scotts poem, En Route describes the moment of tranquillity a bring rider observes as his train is unexpected halted on a train journey. This essay analyses the poem, exploring incidents of how the journey the passenger intend to take is interrupted, offering him an altogether unexpected journey, one which affords him an opportunity to memorize his surroundings in a new light. Within this essay I will explore the meaning of the rubric en route and sh ar the various meanings that can be attributed to this title as a pass of the track followed by the passenger at heart the poem.The poem starts with an attention grabbing line, The train has stopped for no apparent reason in the wilds. The image presented is that of isolation, a passenger stuck in the middle of nowhere, with a sense of solitude and forbiddance. each(prenominal) around the now even so train is further stillness. Winter has set the landscape in the same way in which the train has been stopped, A frozen lak e is level and fretted over, alone so still.The reader is provided with an image of stillness and serenity, the purpose of the train journey, its origin and its finis all become irrelevant and the reader sort of becomes heavily intricate in the here and now and what is happening in the landscape external in which the train now sits is so still. The stoppage of the train allows the passenger to look beyond his straightaway surroundings within the train to what is genuinely happening outdoor(a) his carriage.The delicate and detailed language employed within the poem describes the world outside, it seems a tiny landscape in the work. The landscape that, moments ago would have been a blurred image as the train rushed through, becomes a fascinating scene with multiple levels of keep, detail and delicacy. Descriptive lines such as wisps of shadows from the naked birches and one almost hears it shining as it thaws provide the reader with a vivid sense of how the passenger is able to scrutinize every minute part of the landscape which surrounds him.These are all things that people generally do not have the eon or opportunity to observe as they journey on route from one model to another. Whilst these images are perhaps in truth and part of disposition and life, the passenger seems to perceive them as transitory, theyre passing fast where all impressions go. He is preoccupied with his journey, a journey that he determine in contrast to the scene he can see. The train represents current direction to him, a solid steel structure which is without emotion and sensationalism is, humorousally, of more meaning to him that these delicate images.The purity and honesty of the nature that he is afforded the opportunity to view in great detail is something that he dolefully perceives as meaningless, On a frail substance- images like these, vagaries the unconscious heading receives. The passenger is unable to change. He intends to carry on with the journey he sta rted and, sadly, dismisses the intimate relationship between himself and the environment in which he lives. The title of the poem En Route has numerous meanings within this poem.The train is distinctly en route from one place to another when it is stopped. The stoppage itself is ironic as the train is no longer en route it is going nowhere at all. However, through the stoppage the passenger is transported from one place to another almost instantaneously. Whereas previously he would have been concerned with the immediate surroundings of his carriage, with the landscape perhaps whirling by quickly outside his window, he is now offered an opportunity to look beyond this, to real life outside his window.These views offer him another route, a possibility to acquaint himself with the real meaning of life. Although he momentarily observes this and appears to emphasize with it in some way, he eventually rejects it as being something that isnt of real meaning. He instead chooses to continue on his intended route, leaving the reader with the sense that he is on the wrong tracks, failing to be fully appreciative of the images he can see.