Character analysis Home Burial by Robert Frost

Character analysis Home Burial by Robert Frost

The poem Home Burial by Robert Frost is a touchy story about a man and woman whose baby has died. The poem reveals the deep grieving and the reaction of the parents on the death of their child. The poem shows how the communication between the parents is very distant after their loss, because they are both dealing with the pain they are feeling so differently. In this very context the characters of a wife and a husband are depicted in their climatic tension.

Though the couple is through this tragic experience together, they suffer differently. They are trying to deal with the pain they are feeling by themselves instead of helping each other get through this tragedy together. Home Burial is an ultimately emotional and overwhelming poetry. The emotional state of the couple renders the deadly atmosphere of the loss. Thus, it is natural that the mother suffers more emotionally, because she is the woman who lost a child. However, man’s pain is subtle. He expresses it in a subdued way. He still is guided by common sense. Unlike, his wife seems to be blinded with the pain of loss. She even blames her husband. She does not expect the understanding from him as far as it is hard to be imbued with the feelings of a woman in such a moment. “I don’t know rightly whether any man can.”And he realizes that. He is not angry; he is worn out and depressed. He wants to leave.” To take your mother-loss of a first child, so inconsolably-in the face of love. You’d think his memory might be satisfied…” It is obvious that the pain of loss depicted in the poem may be compared with the pain after abortion. The child was so little, though the grief seems so never-ending for the mother. The behaviour of both patents is morbid detached and near suicidal, especially it is felt in mother’s lamentations.

However, both characters are dramatic heroes. They represent the human morbid inclination to self-torments, blame and curse, inability to avoid the evil fate, etc. “But the world’s evil. I won’t have grief so, if I can change it. Oh, I won’t, I won’t!”