An Analysis Of Robert Frost's 'Home Burial'

1155 Words3 Pages

Robert Frost’s poem “Home Burial” allows readers to consider the devastation that parents experience when they lose a child. “Home Burial” captures the differences in the ways people deal with loss and grief. Munaza Hanif, Anila Jamil, and Rabia Mahmood also analyze this fascinating poem in their paper, “AN ANALYSIS OF HOME BURIAL (1914) BY FROST IN PSYCHOANALYTIC PERSPECTIVE” for its representation of people and their grief. Hanif, Jamil, and Mahmood’s analysis of Amy’s psychological breakdown displays how she and her husband’s lack of communication leads to the death of the marriage. To begin, the husband and wife’s lack of communication in their relationship is made evident within the first few lines, and Hanif, Jamil, and Mahmood feel …show more content…

The wife is dismissive of the husband’s effort to rebuild the bridges that once spanned between them, and the husband is distressed when he says, “My words are nearly always an offense” (Frost 45). The authors of the analysis feel that instead facing her husband and the death of her child she avoids the memories and her husband as they write, “Her tireless performance of watching out of the window is illustrative of escapist to memories of the past…” (Hanif, Jamil, and Mahmood 10). They summarize, “Amy cause of unconscious level of mind (mental disorder) also becomes the cause of death of his marriage already she had lost his child” and by this statement Hanif, Jamil, and Mahmood imply that her inability to accept reality will overcome the husband’s pleas for …show more content…

Amy cries, “Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t” when her husband begins to speak about the dead child, and this does back up the idea that she is unable to reconcile reality with her emotions (Frost 30). They also explain the realistic grasp the husband has on this situation when they say, “ ‘The little graveyard where my people are! /So small the window frames the whole of it.’ At the present, the things of the past are condensed into a mere window to the past” (Hanif, Jamil, and Mahmood 10). The husband establishes himself as a more practical and realistic character when he is identified as a farmer and is shown doing the necessary steps to bury the dead child. As a character that is so realistic the husband cannot understand why Amy, the wife, is so distraught so long after the funeral. Amy believes him to be unable to understand when Frost writes, “She let him look, sure that he wouldn’t see” (Frost 15). The practicality of the husband makes Amy feel like she is unable to share her sorrows with him. Through these explanations of the characters Hanif, Jamil, and Mahmood effectively show how the husband and wife’s relationship is quite strained as they write, “According to his husband’s point of view the

Open Document