The last lines of "The Snow Man," with their emphasis on seeing "nothing that is not there and the nothing that is" are particularly apt. In this poem, things not evoked are equal in importance to the things that are. Why does Stevens invoke the idea of "a man of snow," one who has been "cold for a long time" and who is capable of gazing upon a winter landscape with perfect detachment, if not …
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showed last 75 words of 2415 total
…in "The Snow Man," a brief glimpse of the unitary state, in which even the distinction between the "One" of the poem's first line, and the "listener" of the poem's thirteenth line is dissolved. Are they two? Are they separate? Yes. Are they one? Are they united? Yes. That is the "mind of winter." Ultimately, Steven's poem suggests that through the contemplation of "nothing," through the stilling of thought, we may realize that "One . . . . is."