Men And Women Home Burial Essay - 1,233 words

"Home Burial" depicts a household of misery and miscommunication. As a husband and wife attempt to deal with the loss of a child, they loose each other. Men live life more singularly than women, and immerse themselves in work and self-improvement. Women, on the other hand, tend to regard their family as their life, and therefore live their life more collectively. This difference causes most men and women to think in different ways, and therefore feel unable to communicate or understand one another. Frost uses Amy and her husband's struggle to deal with the loss of their child to show the underlying yet ultimate difference between men and women. "Home Burial" portrays a family lost because of the failure to communicate, which underlying describes Frost's opinion that there is an ultimate difference between a male's tendency to live individually and a female's tendency to live collectively.


Throughout the poem, Amy tries to have her husband understand her so that they may understand and cope together, yet when he fails to she gives up, thus being unable to deal with her loss herself. Amy continues to struggle with the loss of her child because she refuses to deal with the problem individually, as her husband has already done. She seems to want to be consoled by him and have him understand her grief, yet won't let herself because of his outward attitude. She ultimately saw him as a "blind creature" (line 16) who was unable to see the graveyard, or the truth. When he tries to understand by looking out the window she exclaims, "Not you! I don't know rightly whether any man can" (lines 36 - 38).


In this sentence Amy recognizes the fact that according to her, men cannot rightly deal with a loss. She believes his actions after the death of their child to be uncaring and unemotional. She doesn't believe that he has dealt with their collective loss because he hasn't discussed his individual emotions. She feels like he in completely incapable of expressing himself, "you can't because you don't know how to speak" (line 71). Because of his unwillingness to express himself he did not have "any feelings" (line 72). This logic is, however, tainted because of her actual inability to understand his method of dealing with his feelings.


It seems as though she wanted to deal with the loss together in the beginning, yet was appalled by his "rumbling voice" (line 81) speaking of "everyday concerns" (line 86). These "everyday concerns" however, were another failure to communicate and misunderstanding. She was unable to see that his speech was a metaphor relating to the death of their child. "One is alone, and he dies more alone" (line 101) is her philosophy, while her husband sees individuality as a way of life. She believes that to be alone is abnormal and unhealthy, while he chooses not to deal with things collectively, but rather by himself. Utterly frustrated and hopeless, she gives up her struggle to get him to understand and states, "You-oh, you think the talk is all. I must go-Somewhere out of this house.


How can I make you -- " (lines 112 - 113). She realizes finally that she can't make him know her emotions, and that he thinks that by her talking individually that the grieving is over, when all she really wants is to have talked about it together, to have grieved together, to have dealt with the loss together. Amy's husband, seeming to his wife aloof and uncaring, individually deals with the loss of his child. Rather than talking about his grief he chooses to bury the child, thi ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

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Essay Tags: home burial, communicate, individually, men and women, amy

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