The Gift Outright
Theme
The poem, The Gift Outright,
is a patriotic poem, and it deals with national sentiments and pride of
Americans. It presents briefly the history of colonisation in America by
English and European settlers. It tells how these settlers made this land
their own by dint of their love of, and devotion to it. The sense of people’s
oneness with the country of their adoption finds a fine expression in the poem.
This history of America and its people may be said to form, in the form of a
capsule summary, the theme of the poem. The settlers at first felt and behaved
as aliens or outsiders, and so they could not truly possess or own the country.
They became its real possessors
after making a total surrender to it. The national sentiments of Americans, and
their sense of their European ancestry, are both treated nicely in this poem.
The Gift Outright can be better described as a poetic definition of an
American state of mind, a compact psychological essay on colonisation. The
theme of the poem comprises the historical and political background of America,
and the national pride its people feel in their adopted land.
Unlike most of Frost’s poems, The
Gift Outright deals not only with a particular region (New England) of
America, but with that vast country as a whole. The love of country is not
expressed in screaming or hysterical flag-waving, but in salvation of faith, in
surrender to the land.
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