Key Facts
- Poet: Robert Frost (1874-1963)
- Published: 1914
- Form: Blank verse
- Rhyme scheme: Does not follow any specific rhyme scheme. This poem is written in a blank verse form.
- Setting: Home of the village couple
- Main Points:
- The death of a child and
- The destruction of a marriage.
আরো পড়ুনঃ Pike Bangla Summary (বাংলায়)
Symbols
- The Graveyard/Home Burial Ground: The family graveyard is a physical space that symbolizes the past, family history, and tradition. It represents the emotional weight of the child’s death and the couple’s attempt to confront their grief. The burial ground becomes a source of conflict as the husband wants to use it for practical purposes, while the wife sees it as a place of deep emotional significance.
- The Staircase: The staircase inside the house is a significant symbol. It represents the emotional distance and separation between the husband and wife. The wife retreats upstairs to the bedroom, which serves as a metaphorical barrier that keeps her away from her husband’s attempts at understanding and communication.
- The Window: The window is a symbol of the wife’s perspective and her longing for escape. She gazes out the window at the graveyard, feeling connected to her deceased child. The window also becomes a barrier, separating her from her husband, who remains outside.
- The Barrier and Gap in the Wall: The wall that separates the graveyard from the house and the gap the husband is working on symbolizes the emotional barriers between the husband and wife. The physical act of repairing the wall becomes a futile attempt to mend the emotional gap that has emerged between them.
- The Child’s Grave: The child’s grave is a powerful symbol of loss and grief. It serves as a reminder of the tragedy and the pain the husband and wife are struggling to cope with. How they approach burying their child reflects their differing ways of dealing with grief.
- The Communication Breakdown: The central conflict between the husband and wife symbolizes the breakdown of communication and emotional understanding in their relationship. Their inability to communicate effectively about their grief and differing perspectives is a broader symbol of difficulty connecting with one another during emotional turmoil.
- Gender Roles and Expectations: The poem also explores gender roles and expectations of the time. The husband’s more practical approach and the wife’s intense emotional response reflect the societal norms and pressures on men and women to behave in certain ways.
Literary Devices
- Dialogue: The poem is structured around a dramatic dialogue between the husband and wife. This dialogue moves the narrative forward and reveals the characters’ emotions, thoughts, and conflicts. It adds a sense of immediacy and authenticity to the poem.
- Imagery: Frost employs vivid imagery to create a sensory experience for the reader. For instance, descriptions of the graveyard, the house, the staircase, and the landscape contribute to the reader’s understanding of the setting and the characters’ emotional states.
- Metaphor: The staircase can be seen as a metaphor for the emotional distance between the husband and wife. The wife’s retreat upstairs symbolises her emotional withdrawal from the husband’s attempts at communication.
- Symbolism: As mentioned earlier, various symbols contribute to the poem’s depth. These symbols include the graveyard, the window, the wall, and the child’s grave, all carrying deeper meanings beyond their literal interpretations.
- Irony: The poem contains moments of irony, such as the husband’s attempt to mend the physical wall while the emotional barrier between him and his wife remains unresolved. The disconnect between their actions and the underlying emotions adds complexity to the poem.
- Personification: At one point, the husband refers to the house as “stupid.” This anthropomorphises the house, attributing human-like qualities to it, and reflects the frustration and emotional intensity of the moment.
Selected Quotations
“I shan’t be gone long.—You come too.” (Narrator, The Pasture)
The speaker must go out to attend to the pasture spring and a little calf. He hesitates to leave because he doesn’t want to part from the one staying home.
“The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows.” (Narrator, Mowing)
In working the land, the farmhand finds the integrity of nature revealed to him. This integrity is the true reality, which idle hands cannot find.
“Swift there passed me by / On noiseless wing a bewildered butterfly, / Seeking memories grown dim o’er night.” (Narrator, The Tuft of Flowers)
This turn in the poem establishes the butterfly as the vehicle of the poem’s extended metaphor. Butterflies do not have memories, at least as we know them. Therefore, the butterfly’s flight represents the speaker’s thought, leading to the final couplet and a human resolution.
“ Home is the place where, when you have to go there, / They have to take you in.” (Warren, The Death of the Hired Man)
The hired man, Silas, has returned to Warren’s farm to die. Warren doesn’t want him there. Silas has a brother and should go there; he would have to take him in; he’s family.
“I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight / I got from looking through a pane of glass / I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough.” (Narrator, After Apple Picking)
The pane is ice, not glass, and the distorted view through the ice pane represents what we can see of the present reality of our lives. As it melts, it is willfully dropped, but the idea leaves memories of what is now the past.
Home Burial Bangla Summary (বাংলায়)
এই বর্ণনামূলক কবিতায়, ফ্রস্ট এক গ্রামীণ স্বামী-স্ত্রীর মধ্যে একটি উত্তেজনাপূর্ণ কথোপকথন বর্ণনা করেছেন, যাদের সন্তান সম্প্রতি মারা গেছে। এখানে স্ত্রীর নাম হচ্ছে অ্যামি। কবিতাটির শুরুতেই দেখা যায়, অ্যামি একটি সিঁড়ির উপড়ে দাঁড়িয়ে জানালা দিয়ে তার সন্তানের কবরের দিকে তাকিয়ে আছেন। আর অনেক বিলাপ করছে। তার স্বামী তাদের সন্তানকে নিজ হাতে কবর দেয়। অ্যামি কী দেখছে বা কেন দেখছে এবং সে হঠাৎ এতো কষ্ট কেন পেয়েছে, তা তার স্বামী বুঝতে পারে না।
আরো পড়ুনঃ Where the Mind is Without Fear Bangla Summary (বাংলায়)
ছেলের মৃত্যুকে তার স্বামী স্বাভাবিকভাবেই নিয়েছিল।ছেলের মৃত্যুতে তার স্বামী কোনই বিলাপ করে না। অ্যামির মতে, তার স্বামী ভেতরে সন্তানের মৃত্যুতে তার স্বামীকে সে কান্না করতে বা দুঃখ প্রকাশ করতে সে দেখেনি। অ্যামি তার স্বামীর কেমন আচরণে বিরক্ত হয় এবং বাড়ি ছেড়ে যাওয়ার চেষ্টা করে। তার স্বামী তাকে থাকতে অনুরোধ করে এবং তার দুঃখের কথা তার সাথে শেয়ার করতে বলে।
তার স্বামী বুঝতে পারে না, কেন অ্যামি তার দুঃখকে অন্যভাবে প্রকাশ করছে, কেন তার উপরে রাগ দেখাচ্ছে? অ্যামি তাদের মৃত সন্তানের প্রতি তার স্বামীর উদাসীনতা সম্পর্কে নিশ্চিত হয়ে তাকে তিরস্কার করে। তার স্বামী মৃদুভাবে তার রাগ মেনে নেয়, কিন্তু তাদের সম্পর্কের মধ্যে ফাটল রয়ে যায়। অ্যামি বাড়ি ছেড়ে চলে যেতে থাকে, কারণ তার স্বামী রেগে গিয়ে তাকে জোর করে টেনে ধরে।
