Poem Analysis: Home Burial

Celina Eckert

12/10/15

English SL

Ms. Elman

Classwork Task 1 Frost: Physical and emotional landscapes in the dramatic lyric poem, “Home Burial” 1. What happens in the first stanza? Without reading into the context of the following stanzas of the poem, it can be interpreted that the man and woman have different viewpoints regarding whatever is outside the window. We can assume from the word “always” in line 7 that the woman very frequently glances out of it. However, the man has absolutely no idea what the woman is so stupefied over. The lines “He saw her from the bottom of the stairs / Before she saw him.” show how captivated she was by whatever was in her sight. Her captivation may initially seem like mesmerization, but her

He very strongly debates with her over the question of why he is not able to talk about his child as the husband, on the other hand, has accepted the death. Time has passed, and he might be more likely now to say, “That’s the way of the world,” than “The world’s evil.” He did grieve, but the outward indications of his sadness were quite different from those of his wife. Despite the man’s lack of unaccepted grief, he gives his best effort to sympathize with the woman.The man exclaiming “I will find out now - you must tell me dear.” is a confusing blend of harshness and reassurance. He demands to be explained with much applied authority yet he ends the sentence with a familiar and loving noun. At the same time, when the poet wrote “He said to gain time: ‘What is it you see,’”, his intentions of extending the time period can be associated with frustration and hurry. His need to pick up speed reflects his rushedness which can pose as a factor of his annoyance. He later expresses his worry of how his words often feel like an offense to her - “I don’t know how to speak of anything”. His frustration towards her can now be supported with her lack of appreciation for his opinion. The entirety of the poem until this point consisted of the man’s harsh support, so it is a possibility that he was hoping for comprehension in return. Despite being very demanding within his words, he gives his

She is unable to pass a day without thinking of her deceased child and despises how she is unable to move forward from the event. At the same time, she scorns the man for showing indifference upon the event, as she may feel some jealousy for his ability to continue on with his life. The root of this issue, though, is that she feels that the man is showing too little effect from the incident. The father did not leave the task of burial to someone else, instead, he physically dug into the earth and planted his child’s body in the soil. To the woman, this may seem like the action of a heartless person. What she does not realize is that it may be her husband’s way of expressing love for his son. It leads her to think that death brings out the worst in people - not only was her marriage failing but she also realized many more differences between her and the man. She also likely despises death for taking her son. Other than losing his soul, she also had to lose him to the soil and the earth. It was already difficult enough for her to stray from her child in the first place so why did she have to experience the pain