Choose two poems to discuss the following statement ‘Robert Frost is a poet of sadness’:
In the poems ‘Death of the Hired Man’ and ‘Home Burial’, Robert Frost uses dark antitheses, bitter connotations and lonely, disheartening imagery to explore the unforgiving, brutal natural cycle of life and death, particularly observed in rural life, and help the reader to understand the terrible tragedy that often ensues in domestic relationships. He also paints a rather bleak picture of broken, deteriorating relationships and conflicts, especially between husband and wife but also shares his opinion that man is alone in the universe and will always be, despite his efforts to seek companionship.
Firstly, we can observe how Frost uses the woman’s struggle to accept the normality of death in rural life in ‘Home Burial’ and death’s cruel taking of the ailing Silas’ unsatisfactory life in ‘Death of a Hired Man’, to show the tragedy of the cruel, unforgiving natural cycle of life and death and the unpleasant, harsh aspects of rural life and the way some people are overcome by grief and misery because of death. The ‘Home Burial’ woman, in contrast to her husband who has clearly lived in this house his whole life and is accustomed to seeing ‘the little graveyard where [his] people are’ (here his use of the word ‘little’ sounds as if he affectionately sees the graveyard as a familiar, welcoming place he associates with his ancestors), and struggles to understand how her husband seems to accept their child’s death, exclaiming how shocked she was to watch him ‘mak[e] the gravel leap and leap in the air, leap up, like that, and land so lightly’ as he dug the child’s grave. Here the ‘l’ alliteration echoes the lightness of the seemingly unburdened, even joyful movement of the father as if he was merely doing a quotidian task. However, it can be argued, judging by the ironic antithesis ‘worst laugh’ the man responds with, that the woman, seemingly new to this tough, rural lifestyle (coldly calling what is supposed to be her home a ‘house’ as if she feels she doesn’t belong), has totally misunderstood her husband, who, as a farmer used to physical toil, was grieving through the best thing he knew – physical labour. He is used to abrupt deaths like this - knowing as a farmer about the natural order of the things and the cruel inescapable shadow of death (this idea is reinforced by the fact that Frost himself suffered from similar tragedies with some of his children who died from influenza while he was a farmer and therefore was accustomed to the feel of losing a child in rural conditions) but she cannot accept it. The tense dialogue between the two makes the form of the poem irregular, reflecting their misunderstanding of each other’s grief. Frost similarly uses the brutality with which Silas’ life ends, tragically before he can ‘save his self-respect’ by completing the tasks he owes the couple, to paint a sad image of the merciless cycle of death. Warren’s monosyllabic announcement of his death at the end of the poem is short and abrupt – a mere one word topped off by the firm finality of a full stop: “Dead,’ was all he answered.’. This curt declaration is sharply contrasted to Mary’s long, enthusiastic monologues about Silas’ newfound motivation to make peace with life and the people he let down, made longer and more sinuous with the frequent use of enjambment to reflect her continuous eagerness towards Silas’s new attitude), creating a sick irony, reflecting death’ ruthlessness. According to her, Silas’s memories of his unsatisfactory life and unfinished sordid deeds ‘trouble[d] him like a dream’. Here the connotation ‘dream’ suggests that, although they essentially troubled him, Silas’ memories were also pleasant and soothing just like a dream, of a serene life he once knew ‘all through July’ spent haying ‘bunches like big birds’ nests’ (here the metaphor ‘nests’ likens haying to a home, just like what a nest is to a bird, suggesting Silas felt most at home when working with the hay, one of the only things he could do better than his academic ‘young college’ colleague). But it is a life he now lacks, which was probably why he went back, feeling guilty that he never repaid the people who allowed him to live that life through his job. It saddens the reader to learn death robbed Silas of his chance to relive that dream –instead he dies miserable and with the knowledge he wasted his life.
In addition, not only does Frost use individual experience to convey his message – he also uses the distance between the wife and her husband in ‘Home Burial’ and Silas’s solitary, unsatisfactory death in ‘Death of a Hired Man’ to explore the depressing loneliness humans often find themselves in, both in life and death. Man alone with the universe, nature and his individual thoughts is a popular theme in Frost’s work and he makes no exception in these two poems, exploring the broken relationship and misunderstanding that distances the wife and her husband in ‘Home Burial’. Their dichotomy is reflected in the stanza breaks between their separate dialogue, forcing the reader to pause and imagine the emptiness between them (this technique is also employed in the other poem to mark the difference of opinion between Mary and Warren on Silas’ case). Frost also uses the staircase as a symbol of their inability to communicate and their struggle to have a healthy power dynamic, with both of them switching positions as they grapple for understanding and control over their deteriorating relationship. For example, at the beginning of the poem, the man is at ‘the bottom of the stairs’ and the woman at the top. It would appear she is in a position of power, adamantly ‘refus[ing] him any help’ in discovering what she’s looking at but in line 11, the man walks up the stairway and the power begins to shift as the woman ‘cower[s] under him’. Now that the man has found out what she was looking at, he has taken away all her power (symbolized by him taking his place at the top of the stairs) and she, ‘shrinking’ away from him and ‘slid[ing] downstairs’, finds herself in his former position, now at his mercy. Here, Frost is saying that humans cannot share power equally and in a balanced manner – one will always seek to have the higher hand in relationships, thus displaying a destructive tendency to self-alienate. Indeed the couple never stay at the same level for long and therefore are always alone. This idea of self-destructive behaviour in humans saddens the reader – humans often choose to isolate themselves out of greed or bitterness. Similarly in the second poem, Silas is alone and throughout his life, has lost every companion including his brother and employers because of his laziness or arguing which are things he’s responsible for. He doesn’t have to be alone but chose to by continuing his bad tendencies. Both the ‘Home Burial’ husband and Silas seek company and avoid isolation, with the husband trying to prevent his wife from leaving him (his desperation marked by futile abortive physical threats ‘You won’t go now. (…) I’ll follow and bring you back by force’) and Silas going back to the couple’s home to die in their company but despite their efforts, both end up alone at the end of the poem. The door growing ‘wider’ as the woman prepares to leave symbolizes the gap in the couple’s relationship widening, reinforcing the idea of the state of isolation of the characters. It can be argued that Silas is represented by the ‘small sailing cloud’ that Mary is watching. We can imagine a single cloud sailing solo in a huge vast sky, just like Silas is alone in the vast universe. Despite his efforts, Silas dies not only regretful and unsatisfied but also alone (with Warren’s terse reply ‘Dead’ coming yet again into play, the single word reflecting Silas’s one-man alienation). The bleak isolation of the characters and their inability to balance power depicted in both these poems sends a gloomy message to the reader: man is always essentially alone, even in a world full of people and often, unknowingly choose to by continuing to make the same mistakes.
Moreover, it can be argued that Robert Frost exploits not only man’s often self-inflicted alienation but also damaged relationships and their devastating effects on humans, using the couple’s tense broken-down marriage in ‘Home Burial’ and Silas’ troublesome relationships with Warren and his own brother in ‘Death of a Hired Man’. Not only is the woman traumatised by the death of her son, but she also seems distressed by her husband. She ‘cowers’, ‘s[i]nk[s] upon her skirts’ and ‘withdr[a]w[s] shrinking from beneath his arm’ as the man ‘advances’ upon her as if he frightens her and she can’t stand any physical contact or proximity with him. Her degrading referral to him is also important as a ‘blind creature’ for him (she is basically calling him a clueless animal, the use of zoomorphism emphasising her bitterness and distaste). The man’s body language is also telling of the tense nature of their relationship – he stubbornly sits on the staircase and ‘fix[s] his chin between his fists’ to show he refuses to come down to his wife and his use of dictatorial imperatives ‘you must tell me’ and resistant declaratives ‘I will find out’ enforce this, also exposing his authoritarian and domineering attitude towards his wife. Therefore his use of the word ‘dear’ appears incongruous and forced next to his strict commands. Silas, on the other hand, ‘fought’ with his brother ‘all through July’ with the ‘blazing sun’ acting as a metaphor representing the heat of their arguments. Warren’s hostile reactions to Silas’ presence (his declaration that he’ll ‘not have the fellow back’ and exclamation ‘what good is he?’) also indicate he does not get on with Silas because of his laziness when Warren ‘need[ed] him the most’. We can see that because of these bad relationships Silas has ruined with his feckless idleness and pride, he now has no home to go to (even his wealthy brother who we can presume Silas is also estranged from since he does not go to him) and as Warren says, no-one ‘will harbour him at his age for the little he can do’. However, Frost also shows that these people have a choice in repairing their relationships. The man could go down the stairs and lower himself to his wife’s perspective and comfort her but he stubbornly refuses and stays on the staircase and therefore keeps the distance between the two still at a large. Likewise, the parallel structure of the last four lines in stanza 17 in the second poem shows that unless Silas is ‘never any different’, his life will stay the same, friendless and homeless, an unchanging mirror-like cycle just like the parallel structure. Here Frost is showing the sadness of the human’s nature: not only do humans destroy relationships with their own problems and selfishness but their stubborn refusal to change the course of their ways also leads to their downfall and they regret their decisions ‘too late’ as Mary herself says about Silas’ last-minute change of heart.
In conclusion, it can be argued that Frost is indeed a poet of sadness as most of his poems, specifically these two, state that man is alone in the world, even in companionship, as human relationships are frail and can be detrimental with humans making bad choices and refusing to change. He also conveys the cruelty and mercilessness of death through and how some people leave things too late before death takes them away. Nevertheless, Frost should not completely be categorised as a poet of sadness as there is often hope and inspiration for mankind in his poems, these things often emanating from the joy and harmony humans find in Nature.
My teacher's comments:
Amy, this is totally outstanding analytical and responsive work- this IS an A* essay! You are aware that it's long- over long for your exam time allocation- but good to explore these points in detail while you are revising. I appreciate your cross fertilisation of knowledge with your language which you explore confidently Excellent work with a clear and high level sense of voice- very well done!
To improve:
Add 1 more precisely chosen adjective to that group of 3 in opening sentence.
"that often ensues" - when? In the texts? In life?
"broken down relationships" - better, more formal word?
1st half of p1 main section manages to avoid any awareness of the fact that this is POETRY at all - NAUGHTY! I have a book for you and will bring it home...
You make up for this on p2, however - NICE! (smiley on your paper, I'll bring home)
Love the staircase bit. Zoom out philosophically - what are the implications of representing power dynamics like this? What kind of world is being created by Frost here? Add a sentence which "generalises" out this discussion and relates to the existential concerns you are mentioning elsewhere.
Develop the "bleak isolation" sentence, using the ideas you've dealt with to make it sound a little less abrupt.
Your topic sentences need to look back more - rewrite them.
Great section bottom of p2 - can you c-c more with what's gone previously?
In your conclusion, add a couple of bits which show you haven't forgotten you're dealing with poetry.