The Theme Of Death In Robert Frost's Home Burial

In Robert Frost’s “Home Burial.” Frost describes a strained conversation among a husband and wife whose child has just recently passed away. At the opening of the story, the wife is standing at the height of a staircase looking at her child’s grave through the window. Her husband, on the bottom of the steps, does not apprehend what she is staring at or why she has abruptly become so distraught. The wife resents her husband’s inadvertence along with his composure at the situation and makes an effort to leave their home. The husband begs her not to leave but to stay for once and talk to him about her grief; he doesn’t fully grasp why she is frustrated with him for manifesting his grief in his own particular way. Inconsolable, his wife lashes …show more content…
It presents and weaves itself in every line of dialogue in this short story but the couple hardly ever mentions the word. It 's almost as if, for this couple, talking directly about their child’s death, makes the passing of their child much more real, and their grief much more painful. The theme may be death “concerning a child.” however; the story tells of another underlying death. The short story depicts two tragedies: first, the death of a child, and second, the death of a marriage. Even though the death of the couple’s child is the stimulant behind their problems. The larger conflict that destroys the their marriage is the couple’s inability to communicate with each other. The death of their child has brought grief to both the husband and wife, but neither husband nor wife is able to understand the way that the other chooses to express their …show more content…
It is New Year’s Eve and people all around are frolicking and celebrating. The little girl is sitting beside a fountain in the frigid cold. She wears torn and ragged clothes without shoes on her feet. No one buys her matchboxes that lay beside her. The little girl is frightened to go home because she knows her father will beat her for coming back without selling any matches. The little girl wants to light a match to keep herself warm but is scared that her father will beat her for wasting a matchstick. Finally, unable to bear the cold anymore, she takes out a match and lights it. She is sitting in front of a warn stove. She reaches out her hands to feel the heat but the fire from the match soon vanishes and takes with it the stove that provided the child warmth. Then the girl lights another match and she sees before her a lavish dinner table with a roast goose. She giggles in delight but after a while, the match dies out and just as the match before; this one too takes with it the brief gift that it gave to the little match girl. She strikes up another match and this time she is sitting under a beautifully decorated Christmas tree. She reaches out her hands to touch the twinkling lights but as she does the matches flame disappears, the lights begin to rise higher and higher into the sky until they resemble stars,