Journal 16

In the poem "Home Burial" by Robert Frost grief and death are characterized in completely different ways.  The wife is more of the belief that she needs to be visibly upset for basically the remainder of her life, while the husband grieves in a different way and is over it much faster.  The excerpt that caught my eye that really separates each side of grief is between lines 70 and 74.  "A man can't speak of his own child that's dead..You can's because you don't know how to speak.  If you had any feelings, you that dug With your own hand--how could you?-- his little grave; I saw you from that very window there."  To me this portrays to very different sides of how each of these people are handling their feelings of their dead child.  The mother wants absolutely nothing to do with the thought the child because it brings her too much sadness. The father; however, is dealing with it in a much more positive way.  It is hard to tell if the two different ways that they are dealing with grief are equal or one is stronger than the other throughout most of the story.  The last few lines of the poem make me believe that they are equal when she is threatening to leave, "If - You-Do!" She was opening the door wider.  "Where do you mean to go? First tell me that. I'll follow and bring you back by force. I will!"  I believe that him bringing her back by force is a way of Frost portraying that they are both handling this death very hard, even though they are both dealing with it in different ways.  As far as how grief should be handled I do not think there is a right or wrong way to do it.  The person that is grieving over something has to handle it in there own way that makes them most comfortable in that specific situation.