The Insensitive, Selfish Husband of Home Burial
Even in the closest of relationships, the death of a baby can separate and form a wedge between a husband and wife. Husbands and wives tend to handle the process of mourning differently, not only because of the differences between male and female, but also because of personality and the social molding in one's upbringing. In the poem, "Home Burial," Robert Frost gives a glimpse of the conflicts caused by non-communication and misunderstanding between a husband and wife upon the death of their first and only child. Their conflict is rooted in part in the husband's selfishness, revealed by his insensitivity, narrow-mindedness, and pride.
The husband's selfishness is reflected in his unconscious insensitivity to his wife's feelings. The death of a child is extremely hard for anyone to deal with, but it seems to be an impossible task for the man's wife Amy. Even in just walking down the stairs from a window overlooking their family graveyard, her frequent "Looking back over her shoulder at some fear" (3) is a sign of Amy's inability to let go of her emotional hurt. The husband seems to be blind to her concern, for he has to ask her, "What is it you see / From up there always?for I want to know" (6?7). It is not until he goes to the window and looks out for awhile that he finally makes the connection that his wife is hurting from the sight of ". . . the child's mound?" (30). Amy tries to run away from confrontation with her grief, for she ". . . slid[es] downstairs; And turn[s] on [her husband] with . . . a daunting look, . . ." (32?33). The air between them might have begun to clear if her husband had not lost his temper and lashed out saying, "Can't a man speak o...
... middle of paper ...
...ring you back by force. I will!?" (116). His prideful male instinct of leadership cannot take her rebellion, and her assertive independence takes her right out the door.
The difficulty of men understanding women and women understanding men can probably be traced back to creation. When life adds such things as death on top of individual personality traits, the balance in a marriage often teeters. In his personal views and ideals, the husband in Frost's poem has begun to build a brick wall between Amy and himself. Since his understanding of Amy and her grief has not moved beyond the point of self, he might be close to placing the last brick in the wall.
Works Cited
Frost, Robert. "Home Burial." Introduction to Literature: Reading, Analyzing, and Writing.2nd ed. Ed. Dorothy U. Seyler and Richard A. Wilan. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice, 1990. 144?47.
This blues poem discusses an incredibly sensitive topic: the death of Trethewey’s mother, who was murdered by her ex-husband when Trethewey was nineteen. Many of her poetry was inspired by the emotions following this event, and recounting memories made thereafter. “Graveyard Blues” details the funeral for Trethewey’s mother, a somber scene. The flowing words and repetition in the poem allow the reader to move quickly, the three-line stanzas grouping together moments. The poem begins with heavy lament, and the immediate movement of the dead away from the living, “Death stops the body’s work, the soul’s a journeyman [author emphasis]” (Tretheway 8, line 6). Like the epitaph from Wayfaring Stranger, Trethewey indicates that the dead depart the world of the living to some place mysterious, undefined. The living remain, and undertake a different journey, “The road going home was pocked with holes,/ That home-going road’s always full of holes” (Trethewey 8, line 10-11). Trethewey indicates that the mourning is incredibly difficult or “full of holes”, as she leaves the funeral and her mother to return home. ‘Home’ in this poem has become indicative of that which is not Trethewey’s mother, or that which is familiar and comfortable, in vast contrast to the definition of home implied in the
Literature is often a reflection of the times in which it was written, and tends to express some of the commonly held beliefs during its inception. Literature is also a vehicle for change, and the spreading of new ideas. Porter seems to grab hold of both of these ideas in her writing of “Old Mortality.” “Old Mortality” takes place during part of the Women’s Suffrage Movement. While women’s suffrage was not necessarily a widely accepted idea throughout the United States, it began to gain more traction, especially through the progression of this novella. During this time period, women were beginning to recognize that their abilities and value went beyond the home, their husbands, and their children. Throughout the anecdotes told about Amy, the reader learns that Amy never really wanted a marriage. She would have been perfectly happy by herself. While Amy does end up marrying, she becomes the more dominant partner in the marriage, while was certainly uncharacteristic for many women during this time
Robert Frost had a fascination towards loneliness and isolation and thus expressed these ideas in his poems through metaphors. The majority of the characters in Frost’s poems are isolated in one way or another. In some poems, such as “Acquainted with the Night” and “Mending Wall,” the speakers are lonely and isolated from their societies. On other occasions, Frost suggests that isolation can be avoided by interaction with other members of society, for example in “The Tuft of Flowers,” where the poem changes from a speaker all alone, to realizing that people are all connected in some way or another. In Robert Frost’s poems “Acquainted with the Night,” “Mending Wall,” and “The Tuft of Flowers,” the themes insinuate the idea of loneliness and isolation.
During the early seventeenth century, poets were able to mourn the loss of a child publicly by writing elegies, or poems to lament the deceased. Katherine Philips and Ben Jonson were two poets who wrote the popular poems “On the Death of My Dearest Child, Hector Philips”, “On My First Son”, and “On My First Daughter” respectively. Although Philips and Jonson’s elegies contain obvious similarities, the differences between “On the Death of My Dearest Child” and “On My First Son” specifically are pronounced. The emotions displayed in the elegies are very distinct when considering the sex of the poet. The grief shown by a mother and father is a major theme when comparing the approach of mourning in the two elegies.
The piece “Home Burial” by Robert Frost and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T. S Eliot is both memorable and riveting pieces of literature that deals with loneliness and sorrow. Although they both deal with sadness and very strong emotions it is for entirely different reasons. If one cannot identify with their situation and be entirely truthful to their own identity, it can lead to a lifetime of unhappiness, regrets and self-doubt a person should make decisions based on their internal belief and not necessarily what someone else or even society expects of them, being untrue to oneself will leave room for unrealistic expectations and failure. Sometimes persons may find themselves battling with their identity
...creased monitoring of censorship throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Hollywood experienced a major shift in the way pictures were made. Going from depictions of a carefree lifestyle, characteristic of the California dream, to a more monitored approach to filmmaking, Hollywood make the necessary transition in order to abide by the mass request of censorship to the filmmaking process. In this, the California dream was lost, as Americans were brought back to reality, but the action offered a stepping stone to enter a new age where films were praised for decades to come. Today, censorship is still a major issue in Hollywood, and has moved not only to include movies, but all forms of mass media. This shows that the ideals of morality in media will continue to encompass a majority of issues in society, and is one that should continually be addressed in order to find harmony.
There are numerous reasons of why Sammy decided to go through his decision in quitting his job. A person can say that he quit his job because of his deep infatuation towards Queenie and his attempt to chase her down. Someone else can argue that Sammy was finally tired of living the way he was and wanted a fresh start on life with a different approach. But in the end, it can be seen through the course of his actions that Sammy was finally heading towards adulthood, even though in the end he may not have consciously realized it.
Frost, Robert. “The Lover Not Taken.” Literature and the Writing Process. Ed. Elizabeth McMahan et al. 8th ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2007. 696-697.
...d not keep up with all of the emotions she was going through in a short span of time.
In “Home Burial,” Robert Frost uses language and imagery to show how differently a man and a women deal with grief. The poem not only describes the grief the two feel for the loss of their child but also the impending death of a marriage. Frost shows this by using a dramatic style set in New England.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Dir. Francis Ford Coppola. Perf. Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves, and Sir Anthony Hopkins. Columbia TriStar Home Video, 1992.
Williams questions whether desire is advantageous for humanity. Desire for Blanche was inexplicitly linked to a metaphorical death in the beginning of the play. Her sexual desire led to her banishment from Laurel, embodied by the streetcar named de...
Robert Frost is considered by many to be one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century. Frost’s work has been regarded by many as unique. Frost’s poems mainly take place in nature, and it is through nature that he uses sense appealing-vocabulary to immerse the reader into the poem. In the poem, “Hardwood Groves”, Frost uses a Hardwood Tree that is losing its leaves as a symbol of life’s vicissitudes. “Frost recognizes that before things in life are raised up, they must fall down” (Bloom 22).
Frost, Robert. “The Road Not Taken”. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 7Th Ed. Nina
Richardson, Mark. The Ordeal of Robert Frost: The Poet and His Poetics. Urbana: University of Illinois, 1997. Print.