"Home Burial" Poetry Analysis

Thesis: Although united through marriage and the tragic death of their child, the husband and wife in Robert Frost's poem "Home Burial" lack the ability to effectively communicate and comprehend the emotions and actions of the other.

     Sharing an experience does not evoke a uniform response, and coping with grief is a unique process for every individual. The wife in Frost's poem is emotionally destroyed by the death of her son, and we find her moping and distressed by the window. The window separates the wife from the outside world, just as the death of her child has separated her from her husband. The wife is enraged by the callous manner in which her husband copes with the loss: "You could sit there with the stains on your shoes [...] And talk about your everyday concerns." For the wife, her conversations and actions are very indicative of her internal pain and suffering; however, she does not understand that her husband may be dealing with the death in a different way. He goes out and digs the grave, and that may be his way of coming to terms with the death. Although both characters share the same devastating loss, their unique coping methods create a void in their marriage and their understanding of each other.

     The lack of understanding between the wife and husband creates tension and complexity in their marriage. The staircase in the poem is utilized as a metaphor to demonstrate how the married couple is never on the same level of comprehension. When the poem begins, the husband is standing at the bottom of the stairs looking up at his wife by the window. As he climbs the stairs, his wife pulls away: "Mounting until she cowered under him." The husband and wife seem to be competing for dominance within their relationship, and they assert confidence in their method of coping. The wife refers to her husband as a "blind creature," and he treats her as a child and says if necessary he will, "bring [her] back by force." The metaphor of the stairs is meant to create a physical image of their separation to parallel the disparity in their coping methods. Although the husband and wife should be able to empathize with each other because they experience the same horror of losing a child, the lack of effective communication and comprehension creates tension in their marriage.