The theme of "Home Burial," by Robert Frost, is the misunderstanding between a husband and a wife because of conflicting attitudes regarding the death of a child and that these opposing attitudes can cause the death of a relationship as well. The wife feels that her husband does not care about the death of their baby. However, this is not true. The husband takes a closed approach when mourning over his child's death, while his wife grieves openly. Through setting and symbols, Frost shows how the husband and wife are characterized according to the theme, and also how the husband's and wife's misunderstanding results in the burial of their marriage and their home. .
Through time period, the setting has an important effect on the way we see the husband and wife react to the death of their child. The poem takes place in the early 1900's in the home of the husband and wife. During this time period society dictated that men did not show their true feelings. Therefore, men tended to have dealt with conflicts by working hard and being domineering. The poem states that he "mounted until she cowered under him" (l. 11). Later on in the poem, the husband says "I"ll follow you and bring you back by force. I will" (l. 120). Here we see two examples of the husband's domineering attitude towards his wife. He is attempting to control the situation because she is about to leave and he realizes that he has failed to console her. Because of his actions here, the wife fails to see her husband's grief and this misunderstanding has kept them from coming together. .
On the contrary, women of this time period often grieved openly by crying, sulking, or talking about the problem. "If you had any feelings, you that dug with your own hand-how could you?-his little grave" (ll. 66-67). Through the quote, we see that Amy openly grieves and how she had deeply misunderstood her husband's intentions. He worked hard and quickly buried his child, while also trying to bury his memory of the child's death.
