Robert Frost's Home Burial
Robert Frost's dramatic dialogue poem, "Home Burial," is the story of a short, but important, episode in the marriage of a typical New England farm couple. They are "typical" because their "public" personalities are stoic and unimaginative, and because their lives are set within the stark necessities of northeastern American farm life. Yet, they are also typical in that their emotions are those one might expect of young parents who have abruptly and, to them, inexplicably lost their baby. Although their emotions would not, one presumes, be openly displayed to the community, the poem's reader is privileged to view them personally and intimately through the small window opened by the poet.
To some
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In fact, when he does see, she cannot believe it, and "challenges" him to tell her what he does realize. Of course, when he clearly explains his insight as she has asked, she turns that explanation against him also. She "turned on him with such a daunting look" that he blurts his own grief, his own need to "speak of his own child he's lost."
Immediately, she delivers her verdict, a mocking disbelief that he, or any man, has the right (or the ability) to speak of such a subject.
He begs not only for understanding, but also for some concession, some arrangement by which he can know what to say or do and what to leave unsaid and undone. More than once he indicates that at least one of the most unacceptable aspects of her flight from him is the implication that she goes to someone or somewhere else: First "Amy! Don't go to someone else this time," then "Don't --don't go. Don't carry it to someone else this time." As the father and husband, he quite reasonably assumes that it is his place to share her grief. The repetition of "this time" also seems to indicate that she has refused to share her feelings with him before. That he loves her is clear from his pleading; that there has been no foundation of shared emotions within this marriage is also clear.
As a mother, and one who has lost a newborn child, I know that such grief must be shared between husband and wife if a marriage is to remain. Amy's reasoning is based on her own grief-distorted imagining and the
Robert Frost and William Shakespeare have been celebrated by many people because of their ability to express themselves through the written word. Here we are years after their deaths analyzing these fascinating poems about life and death. It’s clear they had similar thoughts about this subject at the time of these writings, even though their characters could not have been more opposite. For both poets, life is too
When she does speak to others, her father is skeptical of what she has said. This is evident on their bus ride to Bend when she engages in a harmless conversation with the women sitting next to her. Her father tells her “you were talking to that lady sitting next to you. She is watching us. What did you tell her?”
Marriage is a full-time job on its own and people should communicate with each other in order to have a healthy marriage for them to love and appreciate each other so they can grow old together. Most of us know by now that the fairy tale happily ever after stories are full of holes. Carver emphasizes that when there is no communication in the marriage the wife starts to feel unhappy and frustrated with him. The wife’s attitude with her husband suggests that the marriage doesn’t seem to be working for her. Carver states, “My wife finally took her eyes off the blind man and looked at me. I had the feeling she didn’t like what she saw. I shrugged (38). ” There was unhappiness in the marriage and the narrator and his wife didn’t seem to get along. In other words the
Her frustrations are due to the various forms of isolation that have made their marriage the focus of outside forces. “In the distance, sky and prairie now were merged into one another linelessly. All round her it was gathering; already in its press and whimpering there strummed a boding of eventual fury.” (Ross 5) This is where the physical isolation and the mental isolation merge to form the ‘storm’ or the ‘Steven’ that would bring about the end of their marriage. The isolation of communication has cost them their relationship, where before, anything relating to infidelity would be ludicrous to exist, but now, it is a
about her son’s well-being, and seems to feel guilty that she urged him to make the trip,
She begins her letter by not showing much mercy to her son. She makes the decision for her son, not allowing him son to do so since he is not “capable of judging” for his own benefit. This showing there isn’t much trust between the mother and son and the bond between the two could not be as strong. He appeared so “averse to the voyage” but she didn’t mention his opinion as to why he felt
The idea of death can be, and is an enormously disturbing, unknown issue in which many people can have many different opinions. To some individuals, the process of life can progress painstakingly slow, while for others life moves too fast. In the excerpt We Were the Mulvaneys, by Joyce Carol Oates, a innocent farm boy named Judd Mulvaney has an eye-opening encounter by a brook near his driveway. During this encounter, Judd faces a chain of feelings and emotions that lead to his change of opinion of the issues of life and death, and change as a character. This emblematic imagery of life and death, as well as jumpy, and retrospective tones benefit the development of Judd as an innocent child as he begins to change into a more conscious and aware adult.
Which of the following words from the poem “Home Burial” give the reader insight into the relationship between the man and woman? Mark all that apply.
In the letter she pours a lot of emotions and makes it obvious that she have been told that “he
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.
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)
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.
She is disgusted at her mercenary and calculating sisters, who deceive their father. She prefers to “love and be silent.”
Robert Frost's "Home Burial" is a tragic poem about a young life cut short and the breakdown of a marriage and family. The poem is considered to be greatly inspired and "spurred by the Frosts' loss of their first child to cholera at age 3" (Romano 2). The complex relationship between husband and wife after their child's death is explored in detail and is displayed truthfully. Among many others, the range of emotions exhibited includes grief, isolation, acceptance, and rejection. The differences in the characters emotions and reactions are evident. The husband and wife in Robert Frost's "Home Burial" react to their son's death in stereotypical fashion and interact with each other with difficulty and resistance.