Robert Frost Home Burial - Selfish Misery Essay

People lose things everyday- be it an object or a loved one. Reactions in experiencing a loss vary from person to person. However, the bond between a parent and child remains shattered when a father suddenly loses his daughter. In James Russell Lowell’s poem “After the Burial”, a friend is comforting a father who lost his daughter. With difficulty, the father attempts to move on from his daughter’s death but is unable to, regardless of the comfort he receives.

Robert Frost has written a poem about death, consequence, and most importantly, how brief and fragile life can be. He uses a little child as an example to get the reader’s attention. His use of diction, imagery, and other literary devices to make the reader understand

Many people define their lives by the relationships within their family. They are someone’s daughter, someone’s wife, or someone’s mother or father. The loss of a family member, especially due to death, creates a radical readjustment to people’s day to day lives and how they see and feel about themselves. Sometimes the process of grief can last over several years and how it is mentally processed and dealt with is different for everyone. “Mud” by Geoffrey Forsyth, shows an insightful view of a grieving man who had already lost his father and grandmother and is now just coming to terms with the loss of his wife two years prior. The entire story is written in first person point of view which allows for the reader to fully engage themselves in the grief and strife of the narrator’s life. Geoffrey’s story “Mud” begins in the home of the narrator where he encounters these dead family members and has to decide if he is ready to move on from his grief and say goodbye or stay behind and be consumed by it.

Since the date of Robert's birth in 1874, Frost experienced great affliction through his life. On May 5, 1885 his father died of tuberculosis leaving 8 dollars to the family's name at the age of eleven. While married at the age of twenty-one, four of his six children died through their suicide or disease. Irma, Frost's fourth child, out lived frost in a mental hospital. His younger sister Jeanie also bound in a mental hospital had passed in 1929. Lesley, the second child of Frost, out lived Frost, marrying twice and wrote a few children books. Unfortunately, Frost continued to endure loss when his mother and his wife, Elinor, developed cancer passing soon after the diagnosis.

It can be difficult for a persona to understand a different perspective. The 1914 blank verse poem, Home Burial, by Robert Frost explores the death of a child and the consequences of this disturbing event on a mother and father. The poem is set at the burgeoning of WWI in pre-war western society. At its core this text explores the gender stereotypes of its time. The mother and father embody the two differing representations of grief over their child’s death. After a brief introduction, the text consists of mostly dialogue which gives the audience an insight into the emotional rift between two personas and their different experiences in dealing with the emotional consequences of death. The husband questions the emotional response of his wife using a demanding tone, desperate to try and understand the reasons for her longing actions “What is it you see From up there always- for

Mrs. Mallard never explains in details on why she feels as though she is trapped in her marriage. After she finds out about her husband’s death she is heartbroken realizing she would never see him again in this life. Though she had loved him, she felt as though he oppressed her either by meaning to or not out of care for

Frost incorporates his personal experiences with loss and his views on society into the narrative

Imagine spending countless hours attempting to figure out the mundane things of life. If every move required constant meditation it could become tedious and frustrating. Often poets use ambiguity as a tool to cause the reader to think deeper to figure out what they mean. Ambiguity is like hiding the meaning of written words. For instance things happen in life that are difficult to understand often these things hurt and are not understood at the moment. Then years later the situation can be reflected on and the meaning potentially can be easily seen. Often poets make use of ambiguity to move a poem or story forward by leaving a little mystery to be pondered.

Robert frost’s Home Burial has serious ramifications on the persona according to their perspective. This is best explored when the persona says, “He saw her from the bottom of the stairs before she saw him.” the enjambment suggests that the male and the female persona are physically far apart, as aresult of conflicting perspectives between husband and wife, due to the death of their child. The male persona

In the poems “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”, by Emily Dickinson and “Home Burial”, by Robert Frost, literary elements are used throughout both poems to get the message the authors are trying to portray. One main important literary element that is used to entice the reader, is symbolism, because it helps the authors describe something without actual describing it. Symbolism is also used because it shows how significant an object is. Characterization is also an important literary technique because it, gives the reader an idea on how the character would act, work, and their values in life. Death is a topic that is used in both poems. Also, every character express their opinion about death differently.

Robert Frost is an iconic poet in American literature today, and is seen as one of the most well known, popular, or respected twentieth century American poets. In his lifetime, Frost received four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry, and the Congressional Gold Medal. However, Robert Frost’s life was not always full of fame and wealth; he had a very difficult life from the very beginning. At age 11, his father died of tuberculosis; fifteen years later, his mother died of cancer. Frost committed his younger sister to a mental hospital, and many years later, committed his own daughter to a mental hospital as well. Both Robert and his wife Elinor suffered from depression throughout their lives, but considering the premature deaths of three of their children and the suicide of another, both maintained sanity very well. (1)

This poem places the reader directly inside of Frost and the decisions that he has made throughout his life. Ultimately we cannot tell if he regrets his decisions or if he is better off for making them. Or is he just conflicted about choosing an overall emotion because his decisions in life have varied so much? This is extremely similar to the common man’s ideals of how his life could have been altered through a difference in a few choices. This poem discusses the morality of human choices and how it effects our entire lives as well as others. He seems like he has reflected on his life and that he is happy to have made it this

Home Burial consists of mainly third voice, which is also where the bulk of the story is gathered from. It is the dialogue between the husband and wife in which they quarrel about speaking of their dead child. From the third voice the reader is given explicit information- like how the husband dug his child’s grave, and how each party grieved, and also more implicit information like the tone of the work towards its final stanzas and the tension between the husband and wife. The third voice definitely dominates this poem though without the second voice, the reader loses the initial tone and tension. Lines 1-4 of the poem are introduced as: He saw her from the bottom of the stairs Before she saw him. She was starting down, Looking back over her shoulder at some fear. She took a doubtful step and

Many of Robert Frost’s poems and short stories are a reflection of his personal life and events. Frost’s short story “Home Burial” emulates his experience living on a farm and the death of two of his sons. Frost gives an intimate view into the life and mind of a married couples’ struggle with grief and the strain it causes to their marriage. The characters Frost describes are synonymous, physically and emotionally, to his own life events.

The ability of the father to carry on with life after his son's death is one part of the stereotype that pertains to the male figure. The male character is suppose to be someone who does not cry, someone who is full of inner strength and is the central rock for all those around him in a time of crisis. The husband in "Home Burial" fulfills these requirements. After the burial, he continues on with his daily chores and attends to the various needs of the farm. These actions are not ones of denial but acceptance. He knows that he and his wife must carry on with their lives after an appropriate period of mourning is over. Understandably, his vision of the length of that time period is considerably shorter than his wife's. He understands that life is for the living and not for the dead. He understands that his son is dead. He also understands that he cannot force these views on his wife, because she must come to her own conclusions and find her own closure to her son's death.