Robert Frost

5 Pages 1194 Words

“Home Burial” describes a man and his wife dealing with a death in the family. Specifically, the death is that of a small child. The man proposes getting over the death quickly and not dwelling on it, while his wife continues to mourn and question. The man just can’t seem to understand that his wife can’t simply move on after the child’s death. His wife refuses to talk to her husband about what she is feeling and he resents that fact and wants her to talk with him. “’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’” (Home Burial, 29). Frost shows a man afraid to let his wife go. He is afraid that she will leave and find someone else to talk to about this while he wants to be the person she turns to. He has so much trouble saying this, though, that his wife almost walks out the door. He has to let his old self die and be vulnerable to his new self which wants to show his wife how much he loves her and cares for her. “’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’ think his memory might be satisfied—‘” (Home Burial, 29). As much as the man wants to change and as much as he wants his wife to know that he cares for her he still can’t let his old self die off completely. His son has died and he can’t stop telling his wife to quit mourning. He doesn’t see any purpose in it and therefore doesn’t want his wife to do it either. “’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’ . . . ‘Three foggy mornings and one rainy day will rot the best birch fence a man can build’” (Home Burial, 30). This man’s son has died and he has just finished burying him in the back yard. He come...