How are the themes of miscommunication, gender role and grief conveyed in Robert

Frost's poem "Home Burial"?

Nobody said being in a relationship would be easy and perfect. Problems and arguments can
happen during any moment of the relationship, it could be in the dating period or after getting
married. If the couple parts’ have opposite personalities or mentalities, it could be worse than
in other cases, but it does not have to be necessarily like that. A tragic event could worsen the
couple’s situation, causing them to get distant and maybe break up. The poet Robert Frost
depicts a situation that could end badly for the couple in his poem “Home Burial” (1930s -
1960s). The author has created a story that could be real, several symbols and used stylistic
devices to transmit the problems of miscommunication, how people deal with grief and the
roles each part of the couple has.

The tone changes in the poem. It starts with a sweet and comprehensive one and ends up with
an aggressive tone in their argument, with an uncomfortable tone between them. “What is it
you see from up there always? - for I want to know”. The husband is talking and expresses he
“wants” to know what she sees and why. He cares about her and he does not like to see her
like that. “I must get out of here. I must get air” The tone changes to uncomfortable when she
uses the word “must”, expressing she has the urgency to get out of the house and escape a
situation where she has to face and talk about her dead child. She cannot confront that
situation. “You couldn’t care”. With their argument, the tone shifts to aggressive, where both
of them are attacking each other with things they did or did not. The “couldn’t” is the word
she chose to say how he did not mind digging their child’s grave and after that acting like
nothing happened. She is very hurt with the way her husband acted with their child’s death,
her tone changes easily because of how sensitive she is with this topic. The changes in the
tone of the couple are because of the argument because of how they express their grief.

“Home Burial” literal meaning is a man and a woman that have lost their child and argue
because of the different ways they are grieving that death. “Can’t a man speak of his own
child he’s lost ; You can’t because you don’t know how to speak” The poem is a dialogue
where the audience sees how both of them feel about their loss. The word “lost" in the first
verse of the evidence is the key to understanding how the husband feels and thinks. The
words “don’t know" are the ones to see the wife’s feelings. Throughout this poem, he is
depicted by his wife as someone without feelings, someone who has not cared about losing
his own child and who has not cried or shown any feelings towards that unfortunate event.
Meanwhile, she is shown as too sensitive about the topic and someone who feels bad or
emotional when thinking about what happened. The author has created two characters with
different ways of expressing how they feel and manage their emotions. “I do think, though,
you overdo a little. ; To take your mother-loss of a first child so inconsolably – in the face of
love.” The husband does not understand how she feels because of the miscommunication that
exists between them. She is angry because of him not showing grief the same way she does,
manifesting their lack of communication with how each one of them have felt after losing
their child. If they had talked about how they felt or were going to manage their grief, they
would have not argued and they would not have accused each other of feeling too much or
too little emotions. The miscommunication in the couple is presented with the accusations
and the argument they have in that moment because of their ways of grieving.

The author has also created symbols to enhance the poem’s meaning. “He saw her from the
bottom of the stairs”. The stairs and where the wife and the husband are in the stairs refer to
the different points of view, the different perspectives each one has of the loss of their child.
This is repeated some more times throughout the poem. “You had stood the spade up against
the wall” That spade the husband used to dig their child’s grave symbolizes how doing that
has not been something important for him. That relates to the way he has had to express his
grief, wanting to not think about what has happened by doing things and being busy (“and
talk about your everyday concerns”). That spade represents the death of the child for her, it
makes her remember what has happened. “The little graveyard where my people are! So
small the window frames the whole of it.” That window is what represents the reality of what
has happened, the death of the child and its grave. These symbols represent the
miscommunication and grief the couple have, making ordinary objects important to fully
transmit the poem’s meaning.

Stylistic devices are a crucial part of poems and in this one there are some of them. “Leap up,
like that, like that, and land so lightly”. Alliteration has been used to catch the audience's
attention and to make what the wife is saying more dramatic. “ Blind creature; and awhile he
wouldn’t see”. This metaphor relates the husband as something that cannot see, not even
being categorized as human. She depicts him like this because of him not realizing and
having forgotten their child’s grave and that it is dead. “Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t, she cried”.
Repetition is used to emphasize what is being said and give that word more relevance in the
poem, that relates to how the wife suffers with her dead child. Rhetorical devices help grief to
be developed in the poem, bringing attention to what the wife or the husband is saying.

“Home Burial” was written between the 1930s and 60s, when women had a different rank in
the society. Men had power and control over them and this is a noticeable thing in the poem.
“A man must partly give up being a man with womenfolk. ; You make me angry: I’ll come
down to you. God, what a woman! ; There, you have said it all and you feel better. You won’t
go now. You’re crying. ; Where do you mean to go? First tell me that. I’ll follow and bring
you back by force. I will!—”. In these verses, he is talking and what he says represents what
a man felt and how they treated women, as if their wives were of their property and not
validating their feelings. The author wanted to highlight the treatment women had from part
of their husbands, not being valued for what they were and how they were. The portrait of the
husband represents the gender role there was in those decades, adding more meaning to the
poem.
The combination of symbols, changes of tone, the literal meaning and the stylistic devices
convey the themes of miscommunication, grief and gender role, making “Home Burial” to
have a deeper meaning and be a more interesting read.