Home Burial (1914) - for APPSC JL DL
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Home Burial (1914)
Background/Context
Home Burial
(1914) is a dramatic or pastoral lyric poem, using free-form dialogue rather
than strict rhythmic schemes. Frost generally uses five stressed syllables in
each line and divides stanzas in terms of lines of speech. It was first
published in 1914 in Frost’s second poetry collection, North of Boston.
It is one of his most powerful dramatic poems, dealing with grief, emotional
isolation, and the failure of communication in marriage. The poem reflects
Frost’s deep interest in human psychology and domestic relationships rather
than nature.
The poem is
believed to be influenced by Frost’s own personal experiences of loss and
suffering. Robert Frost faced many tragedies in his life, including the deaths
of children and emotional struggles within his family. This line shows his
grief: “Can’t
a man speak of his own child he’s lost?”
The title itself
is symbolic. It refers not only to the burial of a child near the family home
but also to the emotional “burial” of love, peace, and understanding within the
home and finally “marriage”. The poem shows how grief can separate people
instead of bringing them closer when they fail to understand each other’s
feelings.
The poem is set
in a rural New England household, a common setting in Frost’s poetry.The
poem is written in blank verse with strong dramatic dialogue, making it similar
to a dramatic monologue or even a short verse drama. Instead of focusing
on external action, the poem centers on inner conflict and psychological
tension.
The poem
describes two tragedies: first, the death of a young child, and second,
the death of a marital relationship. As such, the title “Home Burial,” can be
read as a tragic binary entendre. Although the death of the child is the
mechanism of the couple’s tribulations, the larger conflict that destroys the
marriage is the couple’s incapability to commune with one another. Both
characters are angst at the loss of the child, but neither of them, is able to
comprehend the way that their cohort chooses to express their sorrow.
Summary:
Robert Frost’s
Home Burial is a dramatic poem that presents the emotional conflict between a
husband and wife, in rural England, after the death of their child. The poem
explores grief, silence, misunderstanding, and the breakdown of marital
communication.“Home Burial” is about grief and grieving, but most of all it
seems to be about the collapse and confines of communication.
The poem opens
with the husband noticing his wife, Amy, standing at the top of the staircase
and looking out of the upstairs window. She appears disturbed and distant. The
husband doesn’t immediately recognize the cause of her distress.The husband
cannot understand what she is looking at, but when he climbs the stairs and
looks out, he realizes that she is staring at the grave of their little child,
which is visible from the house.
The grave reminds
Amy constantly of her loss, and she is deeply hurt by the memory. She feels
that her husband does not share her sorrow in the same emotional way. She
believes he is cold and insensitive because he talks about practical matters
instead of openly expressing grief. She is especially upset because he himself
dug the child’s grave and later spoke calmly about it, even mentioning everyday
things like the stones and the fence near the burial place. To Amy, this
calmness feels heartless.
The husband,
however, does not believe he is unfeeling. He argues that grief affects people
differently and that his silence and practical actions are also expressions of
sorrow. He feels hurt because Amy refuses to talk to him and shuts him out
emotionally. She breaks down and tries to go away the house; for she feels
there is nothing more in their relationship. He wants her to share her pain
with him instead of running away from him, and give him a chance. He fails to
understand what it is he does that offends her or why she should grieve for so
long.
Amy becomes
increasingly frustrated and angry. She resents him deeply for his
self-possession, what she sees as his hard-heartedness.She accuses him of not
understanding her suffering and of treating the death of their child too
casually. She feels trapped in the house because everything reminds her of the
tragedy. The home, instead of being a place of comfort, has become a place of
pain and emotional burial.She becomes hysterical and vents some of her anger
and frustration, and he receives it, but the detachment between them remains.
She opens the door to leave, as he calls after her.
The husband tries
to stop her from leaving and asks her to stay and talk. He insists that they
should face their sorrow together rather than apart. However, Amy feels that he
can never understand her grief. She becomes determined to leave the house, and
the argument grows more intense.
The poem ends
without resolution. Amy moves toward the door, preparing to leave, while the
husband desperately calls after her, asking her to stay. This unfinished ending
reflects the unresolved emotional distance between them.The poem powerfully
shows how different responses to grief can destroy relationships when
communication fails.
The setting
The setting of
the poem is unique – a staircase with a door at the bottom and a window at the
top – mechanically sets up the relationship between the characters. The wife
stands at the top of the stairs, directly in front of the window overlooking
the burial ground, while the husband stands at the bottom of the stairs,
looking up at her. While the couple shares the tragedy of their child’s death,
they are at odd position in terms of dealing with their sorrow. With her
position adjoining to the window, the wife is clearly still fraught with her
grief over the loss of her child. Unable to move on at this point in her life,
the wife defines her individuality in terms of the loss and would rather grieve
for the rest of her life than grieve as a sort of facade.
The husband has
dealt with his sorrow more effectively, as evidenced by his location at the
bottom of the staircase, close to the door and the outside world. As a farmer,
the husband is more compliant of the natural cycle of life and death in
general, but also chooses to grieve in a more physical manner: by digging the
grave for his child. Ironically, the husband’s expression of his sorrow is
utterly misunderstood by the wife; she views his behavior as a sign of his insensitive
indifference.
Significance of the Title
The title “Home Burial” denotes the
death of the child, which antecedes the poem, and connotes the death of the
relationship between the couple which the poem foreshadows. It utilizes the
figure of speech called adianoeta,
or double entendre. In this narrative
poem, Frost describes a tense exchange between a rural couple whose child has
recently died. The poem opens, in a dramatic manner, the wife is standing at
the top of a staircase looking at her child’s grave through the window. Her
husband, at the bottom of the stairs, does not understand what she is looking
at or why she has suddenly become so distraught. The wife resents her husband’s
indifference and attempts to leave the house. The husband begs her to stay and
talk to him about her grief; he does not understand why she is upset with him
for expressing his sorrow in a different way. Devastated, the wife lashes out
at him, convinced of his lack of concern toward their dead child. The husband
placidly accepts her resentment, but the fissure between them remains. She
leaves the house as he angrily threatens to drag her back by force.
Line by line summary
Lines 1–5
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 then undid it
To raise herself and look again. …..
The husband observes his wife from below as
she begins descending the stairs but keeps pausing to glance back fearfully
over her shoulder. She hesitates, steps down tentatively, then retreats and
looks again.
Lines 5–7
……. He spoke
Advancing toward her: ‘What is it you see
From up there always—for I want to know.’
He moves toward her and directly asks
what she keeps seeing from the top of the stairs, expressing his desire to
understand.
Lines 8–9
She turned and sank upon her skirts at
that, /
And her face changed from terrified to
dull.
She turns, collapses onto her skirts
on the stairs, and her expression shifts from terror to a blank, dull look.
Lines 10–12
He said to gain time: ‘What is it you
see,’
Mounting until she cowered under him. /
‘I will find out now—you must tell me, dear.’
To stall, he repeats the question while
climbing the stairs toward her until she shrinks/cowers beneath him. He insists
he will discover what it is and demands she tell him.
Lines 13–16
She, in her place, refused him any
help
With the least stiffening of her neck
and silence.
She let him look, sure that he
wouldn’t see,
Blind creature; and awhile he didn’t
see.
She stiffens her neck in silence and
offers no help. She allows him to look out the window, convinced he (the “blind
creature”) won’t understand, and for a time he sees nothing.
Lines 17–20
But at last he murmured, ‘Oh,’ and
again, ‘Oh.’
‘What is it—what?’ she said.
‘Just
that I see.’
‘You don’t,’ she challenged. ‘Tell me what it
is.’
Finally, he reacts with two soft
exclamations of realization: “Oh” and “Oh.”She urgently asks what he sees. He
replies simply that he sees it. She challenges him, insisting he doesn’t and
demanding he tell her exactly what it is.
Lines 21–29
‘The wonder is I didn’t see at once.
I never noticed it from here before.
I must be wonted to it—that’s the reason.
The little graveyard where my people are!
So small the window frames the whole
of it.
Not so much larger than a bedroom, is it?
There are three stones of slate and one of
marble,
Broad-shouldered little slabs there in
the sunlight
On the sidehill. We haven’t to mind those.
He expresses surprise that he hadn’t noticed
it immediately from this angle. He’s grown accustomed to it. It’s the small
family graveyard visible through the window, tiny enough to fit in the frame
like a bedroom. He describes the gravestones (three slate, one marble) on the
hillside and says they don’t need to worry about those older graves.
Lines 30–31
But I understand: it is not the
stones,
But the child’s mound—’
He realizes the issue isn’t the old stones but
the fresh mound of their child’s grave.
Lines 32–34
‘Don’t,
don’t, don’t, don’t,’ she cried.
She withdrew shrinking from beneath his arm /
That rested on the banister, and slid
downstairs;
She interrupts in panic, crying
“Don’t” repeatedly. She shrinks away from his arm on the banister and slides
down the stairs.
Lines 35-37
And turned on him with such a daunting
look,
He said twice over before he knew himself:
‘Can’t a man speak of his own child he’s
lost?’
She turns with a fierce, intimidating look.
Startled, he blurts out twice (almost involuntarily): “Can’t a man speak of his
own child he’s lost?”
Lines 38–40
‘Not you! Oh, where’s my hat? Oh, I
don’t need it!
I must get out of here. I must get
air.
I don’t know rightly whether any man can.’
She rejects him sharply (“Not you!”),
frantically searches for her hat then dismisses it. She insists she must leave
the house for air and questions whether any man can truly speak of it.
Lines 41–44
‘Amy! Don’t go to someone else this
time.
Listen to me. I won’t come down the stairs.’
He sat and fixed his chin between his fists.
‘There’s something I should like to ask you,
dear.’
He calls her by name and pleads with
her not to go to someone else again. He promises not to come down and sits,
chin in fists, saying he wants to ask her something.
Lines 45–46
‘You don’t know how to ask it.’
‘Help me, then.’
She says he doesn’t know how to ask
it. He asks her to help him.
Lines 47–47
Her fingers moved the latch for all
reply.
Her only response is to fidget with the door
latch.
Lines 48–58
‘My words are nearly always an
offense.
I don’t know how to speak of anything
So as to please you. But I might be
taught
I should suppose. I can’t say I see how. /
A man must partly give up being a man
With women-folk. We could have some
arrangement
By which I’d bind myself to keep hands off
Anything special you’re a-mind to name.
Though I don’t like such things ’twixt those
that love.
Two that don’t love can’t live together
without them.
But two that do can’t live together with
them.’
He admits his words usually offend her and he
struggles to speak pleasingly, though he thinks he could learn. He reflects
that a man must partly surrender his masculinity around women. He suggests they
could agree on boundaries for sensitive topics (though he dislikes such
arrangements between lovers). People who don’t love each other need such rules
to live together; those who do love cannot live with them.
Lines 59–69
She moved the latch a little.
‘Don’t—don’t go.
Don’t carry it to someone else this time.
Tell me about it if it’s something human.
Let me into your grief. I’m not so much /
Unlike other folks as your standing
there
Apart would make me out. Give me my chance.
I do think, though, you overdo it a little.
What was it brought you up to think it the
thing
To take your mother-loss of a first child
So inconsolably—in the face of love.
You’d think his memory might be
satisfied—’
She moves the latch again. He begs her not to
leave or take her pain elsewhere. He asks her to share if it’s a human grief
and to let him in. He claims he’s not as alien as she thinks by standing apart
and asks for a chance. However, he gently criticizes that she overdoes her
grief over the loss of their first child, even against the love still present,
and suggests the child’s memory should be satisfied by now.
Lines 70–70
‘There you go sneering now!’
She accuses him of sneering at her.
Lines 71–74
‘I’m not, I’m not!
You make me angry. I’ll come down to
you.
God, what a woman! And it’s come to this,
A man can’t speak of his own child that’s
dead.’
He denies sneering, says she’s angering him,
and declares he’ll come down. He exclaims in frustration about what a woman she
is and laments that a man can no longer speak of his own dead child.
Lines 75–92
‘You can’t because you don't know how
to speak.
If you had any feelings, you that dug
With your own hand—how could you?—his little
grave;
I saw you from that very window there,
Making the gravel leap and leap in air,
Leap up, like that, like that, and land so
lightly
And roll back down the mound beside the hole.
I thought, Who is that man? I didn’t
know you.
And I crept down the stairs and up the stairs
To look again, and still your spade kept
lifting.
Then you came in. I heard your rumbling voice
Out in the kitchen, and I don’t know why,
But I went near to see with my own eyes.
You could sit there with the stains on your
shoes
Of the fresh earth from your own baby’s grave
And talk about your everyday concerns.
You had stood the spade up against the wall
Outside there in the entry, for I saw it.’
She explains he can’t speak of it because he
lacks the right way or feelings. She recounts watching him dig the grave with
his own hands from the window—the gravel flying up dramatically. She didn’t
recognize him at first and crept up and down the stairs watching. When he came
inside, he sat with dirt still on his shoes from the baby’s grave and casually
discussed ordinary matters, with the spade left outside.
Lines 93–94
‘I shall laugh the worst laugh I ever
laughed.
I’m cursed. God, if I don’t believe I’m
cursed.’
He reacts bitterly, saying he will
laugh the worst laugh ever and feels cursed by God.
Lines 95–101
‘I can repeat the very words you were
saying:
“Three foggy mornings and one rainy day
Will rot the best birch fence a man can
build.”
Think of it, talk like that at such a
time!
What had how long it takes a birch to
rot
To do with what was in the darkened
parlor?
You couldn’t care! .........
She quotes his exact casual words about a
birch fence rotting and questions how he could talk of something so trivial
while their dead child lay in the parlor. She accuses him of not caring at all.
Lines 101–111
…………….The nearest friends can go
With anyone to death, comes so far short
They might as well not try to go at all.
No, from the time when one is sick to death,
One is alone, and he dies more alone.
Friends make pretense of following to the
grave,
But before one is in it, their minds are
turned
And making the best of their way back
to life
And living people, and things they understand.
But the world’s evil. I won’t have grief so
If I can change it. Oh, I won’t, I won’t!’
She argues that even closest friends can only
accompany someone so far toward death; ultimately, one faces sickness and death
completely alone. Friends pretend to follow to the grave but quickly return to
everyday life. She calls the world evil and refuses to accept grief in that
detached, ordinary way—she won’t allow it.
Lines 112–115
‘There, you have said it all and you
feel better.
You won’t go now. You’re crying. Close the
door.
The heart’s gone out of it: why keep it up.
Amy! There’s someone coming down the road!’
He says she has expressed everything and
should feel better. He tells her not to go, notes she’s crying, and urges her
to close the door—the passion has faded. He warns that someone is coming down
the road.
Lines 116–117
‘You—oh, you think the talk is all. I
must go—
Somewhere out of this house. How can I make
you—’
She retorts that he believes talk solves
everything. She must leave the house somehow and questions how she can make him
understand.
Lines 118–120 (ending)
‘If—you—do!’ She was opening the door
wider.
‘Where do you mean to go? First tell
me that.
I’ll follow and bring you back by force. I
will!—’
He threatens: “If—you—do!” As she opens the
door wider, he demands to know where she’s going and declares he will follow
and forcibly bring her back.
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