Robert Frosts Home Burial is a very well written poem about a husbands and a wifes loss. Their first born child has died recently. Amy and her husband deal with their loss in two very different ways, which cause problems. Amy seems like she confines their child to the grave. She never seems to le go of the fact she has lost her first child. Amys husband buried their child himself. This allowed him to let go and live a normal life. Amy does not understand how he could do what he did. Therefore, she wants to have nothing to do with him, especially talk to him. He doesnt understand why she cant let go, and why she wont talk to him.
He tries to get her to tell him why, but she just wants to go to someone else. She will not talk to him or let him talk to her because he always speaks offensively. This lack of communication was there before the death, which I think will be the downfall of their marriage. Frosts use of imagery and tone allow the reader to see and feel what Amy and her husband are going through. Frost uses a lot of imagery in Home Burial to give the reader a look at what is going on. The first line, He saw her from the bottom of the stairs / Before she saw him, lets the reader know Amy is at the top of the stairs, and her husband is at the bottom.
He uses imagery to show many things such as facial expressions, movement from one place to another, and to describe a scene. He shows expressions in line eight And her face changed from terrified to dull, line forty-three He sat and fixed his chin between his fists, and line one-hundred and thirteen Youre crying. By seeing these 2 expressions, the reader can almost feel what is going on in Amys and her husbands head. Line eight lets us know that Amy does not want to talk to see her husband. Line forty-three lets me know her husband is having a hard time finding what to say.
In line one-hundred and thirteen, it is obvious Amy is sad and upset. He shows movement in lines thirty-three through thirty-five She withdrew, shrinking from beneath his arm / That rested on the banister, and slid downstairs; / And turned on him with such a daunting look, line forty-seven Her fingers moved the latch a little and line one-hundred and eighteen She was opening the door wider. These movements let the reader know that Amy has gone downstairs, and is trying to go out the door. He describes different scenes in lines twenty-four through thirty-one The little graveyard where my people are!
So small the window frames the whole of it. / Not so much larger than a bedroom, is it? / There are three stones of slate and one of marble, / Broad-shouldered little slabs there in the sunlight / On the sidehill. We havent to mind those. / But I understand: it is not the stones, / But the childs mound. These lines are describing their family graveyard. In lines seventy-nine through eighty-one Making the gravel leap and leap in air, / Leap up, like that, like that, and land so lightly / and roll back down the mound beside the hole, Amy is describing what she saw when her husband was digging their childs grave.
In lines eighty-eight through ninety-two You could sit there with the stains on your shoes / Of the fresh earth from your own babys grave / And talk about your everyday concerns. / You had stood the spade up against the wall / Outside there in the entry, for I saw it, Amy lets her husband know she remembers everything he did, and how it angered her. Lastly line one-hundred and fifteen Amy! Theres someone coming down the road! All of these lines come together to form the poems imagery. 3 Frost also gives the reader a sense of what is going on through the overall tone of the poem.
Home Burial is a poem about a doomed relationship. Therefore, the tone of the poem has a sense of depression and anger. The depression mainly comes from Amy. The first three stanzas let you know she is upset about the death of her child. Her husband also upsets her by not understanding how she feels, and not being able to talk to her. The anger mostly comes from her husband. He gets mad at Amy for being so negative toward him. The fact that he buried their child with his own two hands, and goes on each day like nothing ever happened makes Amy very mad. He also stays mad at her for always going to someone else to talk to.
This anger goes back and forth throughout the whole poem. The negative tone lets the reader almost feel what Amy and her husband are going through. In Conclusion, imagery and tone work together to give the reader a sense of feeling what Amy and her husband are going through. Robert Frost wrote this poem shortly after his own son died, which could have been the central purpose of the poem. I believe one of the main themes of the poem is that communication is a very important thing in a relationship. Amys and her husbands relationship might have been all right if they had just been able to communicate with each other.
