Home Burial And Death Of Hired Man English Literature Essay

In Home Burial and The Death of a Hired Man, Robert Frost uses sorrow to express the effect of death on the living. These poems show different families that are dealing with death and the ways that they refuse to romanticise grief. “Home Burial” shows a woman who is unable to deal with the loss of her child, which results in the separation from her husband. In “The Death of a Hired Man,” a married couple express their different feelings toward a man who used to work for them and that had come home to die. These poems are similar to another because they both show a conflict between the husband and the wife. husbands represent a view of life which is very antithetical to wives’

**(CONFLICT -add linesThese poems are similar because they allow the reader to get a glimpse of death and the way that it affects the world and the people in it. Moreover, death becomes a process of surviving, to show the emotional impact that it can have over the living.

In the beginning of “Home Burial”, we see the wife coming down the stairs of her home. As she descends, she looks out, she looks out the window in the stairwell, catches the site of the family cemetery and becomes upset. Her husband sees her and asks if anything is wrong. In response she grows agitatataes and crumbles on the steps. She is reluctant to reveal the reasons for her emotions because she does not believe that he even remotely feels the same way over the loss of her son. (QUOTE)Both the husband and the wife grieve of the loss of their son, but they do so in different ways. For example, the wife is content to be away from the house and reminds her of him, while the husband digs the grave in an effort to move on to happier times. (QUOTE)

In the wife’s reaction to her to her husbands grieving, she doesn’t credit her husband with having the capacity for grief which she possessed herself. The hostility and revulsion that might be controllable in less trying circumnstances cannot be contained her passion is fully devoted to her mourning. (QUOTE)

Although her husband tries to tell his wife that he understands her and she does not believe him. He realized that their relationship is experiencing difficult times and vainly attempts to console her. Frost shows his sheer desperation in the poem when he writes: Amy!Don’t go to someone else this time / Listen to me, I wont come down the stairs / He sat and fixed his chin between his fists (41-43). After he states this , Amy moves closer to the door, but does not open it. She tells him that he does not understand what she is going through and he begs her to let him into her mind and heart so they can grieve together. He finally tells her what he is thinking when he says:

My words are nearly always an offense

The main theme within “home burial” is the contrasting emotions between man and wife. The death of their child allows us to see how Amy and her husband differ emotionally, physically, and mentally. Other than the obvious tragedy of the loss of their child, they also experience the tragedy of the loss of love and free will. The child’s death causes sorrow and unspeakable pain to Amy. While, her husband is hurt as well, he bottles up his emotions. Containing his emotions caused the husband to feel the need to move on from the anguish they recently had to face. This conflict of emotions causes Amy to think of her husband as a “blind creature” (line 16) who wouldn’t be able to understand her emotions. Amy’s unwillingness to share her feelings with her husband causes him to feel angry and hurt.

Our very first introduction to the husband is one of a domineering intimidating force. In the opening verse his presence obviously invokes a sense of a fear in Amy. Upon speaking to her, her facial expressions went from being terrified to dull and caused her to sink in her skirt. Shortly after, Amy shows us that she is unable to share intimate feelings with her husband when she refuses to answer his forceful questions.

From the opening verse, we can conclude, that Amy is intimidated and threatened by her husband. The husband’s presence instantaneously terrifies her. We later learn that her unwillingness to answer his questions has been a problem in the past when he pleads “Amy! Don’t go to someone else this time”. (Line 41) This shows that not only has she not trusted him with her emotions in the past, but we can also infer that the husband is generally controlling, intimidating, and threatening.

Death uses grief and loss to separate people and to bring them together.