Jumat, 27 Februari 2009

the dead of the hired man

“ Meaning of Home for Silas “

“The Death of the Hired Man” is one of Robert Frost’s poem. When I read this poem, it makes me wondering. The poem is just like kind of short story but this is a poem actually. The poem ‘starring’ by the couple Mary and Warren which is has the dialogue here and tell whole story, and of course Silas as the center of the story.

We have two contradictory speakers, each one right in his or her way, and only when the points of view are joined is the poem resolved. Yet the resolution is not tied up in a neatly restful way. On the contrary, it is open-ended, that is, we are left with two points of view, but although they have clung to their differences, they have made a species of truce, and the poem concludes, concludes in an open-ended way.

The poem itself tell about the return of Silas, the ex worker in the couple’s field. After all the time had passed he was back to the couple’s house. It makes the couple feel confuse in order to accept him back or not and they have the different opinion about this. The differences between the attitudes of Warren and Mary become clear. In lines 31-36. Warren is frustrated because of his past experience while Mary is compassionate because she has observed Silas’s current condition. Although Mary attempted to care for him physically, Silas seemed to be too exhausted to receive her care. The fact that he was unable to wake up to drink tea or smoke foreshadows the end of the poem, when he will be permanently unable to wake up.

He speculates that Silas has “come to ditch the meadow” as he’s promised to do in the past, but Warren knows Silas is incapable of the task. Even after Mary provides more detail about her conversation with Silas, Warren remains unsympathetic. Their conversation here provides some additional background material regarding Silas. He has a brother who is quite successful by conventional standards but with whom Silas does not get along. Since Warren feels Silas did not keep up his end of the bargain, Warren believes he owes Silas nothing. Mary, on the other hand, placates Warren in the tradition of principle based on need — that those who can must take care of those who cannot, regardless of whether they deserve it. Warren gradually acquiesces to Mary’s entreaties and agrees to keep Silas on at the farm. When Warren goes to check on Silas, Silas is dead.

In this case I want to talk about why Silas is back in the couple’s home after all the time. ”The Death of the Hired Man,” as you'll recall, begins as the wife informs her husband that Silas, the hired man, "is back...be kind." He answers: "when was I ever anything but kind to him? / But I’ll not have the fellow back." Many lines later, after the sketched-in background, the key exchange occurs. "Warren," she tells her husband, "[Silas] has come home to die: / you needn't be afraid he'll leave you this time." "Home," the husband mocks gently, "home." "Yes, what else but home?" she answers:

It all depends on what you mean by home.
Of course he’s nothing to us, any more
Than was the hound that came a stranger to us
Out of the woods, worn out upon the trail.

To which the husband answers: "Home is the place where, when you have to go there, / They have to take you in." But she cannot agree: "I should have called it / Something you somehow haven’t to deserve."

The Hired man has returned "home" to die. Though kinship would suggest that the old man’s rich brother ought to provide a home for him, Silas evidently feels more at home with the farm couple, who have supported him over the years. The poem presents two definitions of "home": " ’Home is the place where, when you have to go there, / They have to take you in.’ / ’I should have called it / Something you somehow haven’t to deserve.’ "

In this case Silas appears to have come "home" by both definitions. Despite his initial refusal, it looks as if Warren (the farmer) will have to take his old hand in, though Silas has done nothing to deserve it. Of course, when the moment of truth arrives, Silas is already dead. Perhaps after “The Death of the Hired Man” the definition of home will not be the lesser good that Warren called “the place where they have to take you in,” but the greater good Mary calls “something you somehow haven’t to deserve.”

Tidak ada komentar: