Poetry: Analysis of The Death of the Hired Man (Robert Frost)

                                                                                                                       

In this poem, Robert Frost raises three contradictive characters as the most influential actors. They are Warren and his wife, Mary, as the owners of the farm and Silas as a farmhand. In addition, He also putted the dialogue as the complement of his poem and kindly empowers the character of Warren as the teller of the story in some parts and concurrently also the speaker in the dialogue. This authority is seen in the use of pronoun for Warren which uses ‘I’ not ‘he’ (e.g. I said not he said; see line 14).

These three characters are the main view that will cheer up the situation in the poem. The situation is the tension in the climax part which will be raised with hardly broken heart feeling over Warren to Silas especially. Silas is the purpose object that will get the emphasis in his lives because of something he did in the past. Consequently, he has to repay it but is failed unfortunately. Besides, Mary struggles to calm Warren’s heart.

Analysis

Previously, there was a man, called Silas, who worked at the farm owned by a married couple, Warren and Mary. However, unfortunately, Silas was fired because he didn’t do his duty correctly and properly and that was disappointing. This is the main conflict which broke their relationship. In addition, it is also the climax section which is occurred in the beginning of the poem.

After the time went by through the sympathetic feeling of Mary, then she pleaded with her husband to take Silas back here again, Silas was even back again by permission of Warren. So, this was the time to change everything on Silas’s reputation and to repay the broken relationship among them. On the contrary, In this case, there was a great deliberation between Warren and Mary. It was about the hatefulness upon Silas. His wife said,” Be kind” in the line 7, which means Warren had to forget every stuck feeling in the past. He should be nice when met and talked to Silas. But, unfortunately, Warren couldn’t accept that advice as easy as inverting palm of hand. He was still extremely angry with him," When was I ever anything but kind to him?” in the line 11 (the expression of disapproval and spite).

The conflict was more complex when they shift their seat onto the wooden stair in front of the house which his wife still didn’t surrender to care for Silas. She was still brave to convince her husband about the goodness of Silas in current time,” What good is he” line 15. Moreover, she also tried to open his husband virtue with an advice, “Who else will harbor him”,” At his age for the little he can do?” line 15-16. Unfortunately, those words didn’t give great influence to Warren. He still depended on his emotion.

When his wife persuaded him to provide the wages for Silas, which is described in the line 19-20,”He thinks he ought to earn a little pay”,” Enough at least to buy tobacco with,” he argued in the line 22-23,” I can't afford to pay”,” Any fixed wages, though I wish I could,” which means his heart was still broken and it was so heavy to give something precious for Silas even he had to.

In this contradiction, Mary follows the model of Christian forgiveness that expects her to help Silas because he needs it, not because he deserves it. Warren, on the other hand, does not believe that they owe anything to Silas and feels that they are not bound to help him.

Ironically, even after Silas attempt to die in the companionship of Mary and Warren, the people whom he views as family more than any others, he ultimately dies alone. Moreover, he dies without ever fulfilling his contract to ditch the meadow and clear the upper pasture. For all his attempts to fulfill his duty, achieve satisfaction through hard work, and find a sense of family, Silas’s efforts are unsuccessful. Besides, more ironically, the way in which his death is very miserable still expresses bleak isolation; Warren merely declares, “Dead.”