What is the symbolism and theme in the poem "Love and A Question"?I'm working on a project for English and really need help with this.

Frost's poems are often ambiguous and therefore lend
themselves to a variety of interpretations.  "Love and a Question" is no exception.  The
basic situation involves a stranger who approaches the house of a bridegroom and bride.
 This young couple might be newlyweds or about to be married on this evening.  The
situation is reminiscent of Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" in which the
mariner approaches a young bridegroom who is about to get married.  In this ballad, the
joyful occasion of a wedding is interrupted by the old man who wants to tell his story
of crime, penance, and redemption, and when he finishes his tale, the bridegroom is a
wiser man.

In Frost's poem, we have a similar contrast
young and old; cheerful and sorrowful. The young bridegroom steps out of his lighted and
warm house, where inside is a young bride full of desire for him.  The stranger is an
older man, for he carries a "green-white stick," and is desperate for
shelter.

The bridegroom must decide whether or not to
welcome this stranger into his house.  He looks outside to see if the night weather
warrants taking the stranger into his house.  It is an autumn night and winter is in the
air.  The bridegroom cannot predict the harshness of the weather:  "Stranger, I wish I
knew."  But, as typical of Frost, the weather most likely symbolizes much more that a
literal autumn night.  Perhaps the bridegroom is also studying the sky to see his own
future.  What changes will his life experience as the seasons change?  It is a question
no one knows the answer to.

He looks inside--the wife or
bride at the hearth is in his present.  Is the stranger's life his future?  He hopes her
heart will remain as it is "in a case of gold/And pinned with a silver
pin."

Another question arises. The bridegroom struggles
between his duty to a fellow human being and his desire not to mar the mood of the
bridal house.  He feels that he should give the stranger shelter, food, and money.  But
he fears that by letting the stranger into his house, he will be "harboring woe."  At
the end of the poem, this question is unanswered.  The bridegroom "wished he knew" what
he should do.

This decision represents a conflict between
duty and desire as well as compassion and selfishness.  But it also represents a
clinging to the present and a fear of change.  One's life can be as unpredictable as the
weather, but changes are as inevitable as the seasons.  So, perhaps the larger question
here is what kind of life is in store for the bridegroom.  Could his fate be that of the
stranger?