Critical Appreciation The Death of the Hired Man

Critical Appreciation The Death of the Hired Man

Critical appreciation of a poem helps the reader of a poem to understand that poem well. The poem The Death of the Hired Man is one of the philosophical poems where Frost presents himself as a modern poet. This article is going to be a critical appreciation of The Death of the Hired Man poem. Let’s see.

Critical Appreciation The Death of the Hired Man

The poem “The Death of the Hired Man” is a dramatic narrative poem. It describes the death of an old servant (hired man) in the house of his master, Warren. Warren and his wife Mary have sharply divided opinions on the old servant, and their attitudes to him are diametrically opposite. It vividly describes the humane considerations of Mary, and cruel feelings and unkind considerations of Warren, for their old servant Silas who comes back to their house after quite a long time in a very weak condition of health, and dies there within a short time after his arrival. 

In a sense the work is like a classical drama, in that it deals only with the denouement of the action, the earlier events being told during the discussion between the man and wife. There is little. physical action: Mary moves on to the porch at the beginning of the poem and Warren goes into the house at the end. The description of the setting is also very lean. 

The bulk of the poem is dialogue, and so it has been called by some critics as a dramatic dialogue. It is an important point for the reader to notice that Frost has very skilfully differentiated between the two speakers, and has revealed their characters through their speech rhythms and their choice of language. 

The poem is written in blank verse, with variations. Blank verse seems to be the fit instrument for the subject and theme of the poem. 

The most obvious quality of Frost’s poetry is simplicity of thought and clarity of expression. Thompson points out that Frost’s poetry is very much akin to that of Wordsworth. Frost has particularly emphasized the concern for catching, within the lines of his poems, the rhythms, cadences and tones of human speech. Frost wrote the natural colloquial language of New Englanders. 

He wanted to catch all the nuances, inflections and intonations of their language. Corvelin Weygandt says, (“All rural New England shares a laconic speech, a picturesqueness of phrase, a stiffness of lip, a quizzicality of attitude, a twisting of approach to thought, but there is a New Hampshire slant to all these qualities, and that you find in the verse of Frost.”) 

In Frost’s poetry, generally the speech syntax is loose, punctuated by parentheses, pauses, breaks, ellipses, halting measures, sudden ejaculations, abrupt beginnings, and sometimes sudden ends. In the beginning of the poem, we find Mary meets the husband in the doorway to put him on his guard, and says to him, “Silas is back”, and “Be kind”. Within these two very short  expressions we get a whole picture of the situation which becomes clear after a little while. 

In the quarrel over the question of how home should be defined, the reader gets a clear view of the subtle difference in opinions of Mary and Warren. The quarrel is described with superb skill. 

Frost has used symbols with great poetic effect. In most of his Poems Frost draws on the phenomena and objects of Nature as Symbols of universal issues. The quarrel of the man and wife over the death of the hired man symbolizes the drama of man’s justice and woman’s mercy set against the value of-the dignity of man. Frost has used his poetic devices successfully in the poem. 

The poem “The Death of the Hired Man” belongs to Frost’s North of Boston, a book of poems containing some of his most famous like “Birches”, “Mowing”, “Mending Wall”, “The Mountain,” “Brown’s Descent’, ““Two Trams in Mud Time’, etc. Frost, in the dedication, speaks of this volume as “This book of people’’. It is the people who dominate the world North of Boston. 

They question the purpose of a wall, they differ about the meaning of “home”, or expose themselves to ridiculous fears and the fear of ridicule. They argue about politics and mountain climbing, and ancestors and law and house-keeping. No violence is there, and little anger is observed even though the differences are quite prominent. A healing humour covers all, and there is banter in the disputes. 

Louis Untermeyer , a noted critic of Robert Frost, observes, “The Death of the Hired Man” is many kinds of poem. It is a narrative, dialogue, and drama; it has been successfully acted as a one-act play. The poem portrays three people—a farmer, his wife, and an old incompetent hired hand. The character most fully revealed is the hired man, but he never appears in the poem.” 

The story runs thus: Mary, wife of the farmer Warren, sat waiting at the table for Warren. On hearing his step, she ran on tip-toe down the darkened passage. She met him in the doorway, and gave him the news that Silas, their old servant, was back. She told him to be kind to Silas, and drew him down to sit beside her on the wooden steps. 

Warren told her he had never been anything but kind to him, but he would not have the fellow back. He fF sd told him so last “haying.” He was of little worth, and not dependable enough. He went off when he needed him most. He wanted to earn a little pay, but Warren could not afford to pay him any fixed wages. Silas told him someone else could, so he left him in haying time when any help was scarce. In winter, when he was not needed, he came. 

Mary told Warren he was asleep beside the stove. When she came up from Rowe’s, she found him there, “huddled against the barn-door fast asleep”. He was a miserable sight, a frightening sight. She also told Warren he did not tell her anything regarding where he had been; he merely kept nodding off to the questions she asked. He, a poor old man, had his humble way to save his self-respect. He came merely to clear the meadow. 

He usually jumbled everything. He wanted Harold Wilson to come back and be his co-worker, as he had been some years back. But Wilson had finished school, and was teaching in a college. The memory of the days when Silas and Harold fought all through July under the blazing sun, still troubled him like a dream. “Harold’s young college boy’s assurance piqued him.” Harold is associated in his mind with Latin. 

He asked Mary what she thought of Harold’s saying he studied Latin like the violin because he liked it. Silas thought Harold had not learned much from school. He thought most of all if he could have another chance to teach him how to build a load of hay. 

Warren agreed that was Silas’s one accomplishment. Mary continued to say that Silas thought if he could teach him (Harold) the art of building a load of hay he would be some good perhaps to someone in the world. He hated to see a boy the fool of books. He had great concern for other fellow, but nothing for him to look backward with pride, and nothing to look forward with hope. 

The moon was “falling down the west”. Its light poured softly in her lap. She spread her apron to it, put out her hand among the harplike morning-glory strings, as if she played unheard some tenderness that wrought on Warren. She told Warren that Silas had come home to die, and he did not need to be afraid he would leave him again that time. Warren did not agree that theirs was Silas’s home. 

But Mary said, “I should have called it/something you somehow haven't deserved.” Warren said Silas should have gone to his brother, a rich man. Mary said his brother ought to help him of course. But she would see to it later. For the moment he urged upon Warren to have pity on Silas, but she thought Silas had no pride in claiming kin from his brother. He was the sort of person that kinsfolk could not abide. He was worthless, but he would be ashamed to please his brother. 

Warren said he could not think he ever hurt anyone. But Mary said he did hurt her that day by the way he lay and rolled his head on the sharp-edged chair-back. He would not let her put him in the lounge. Then Mary told him to go and see what he could do for Silas. She made the bed up for him there that night. He was much broken; his working days were over. Warren left. The small sailing cloud hit the moon. Warren returned too soon, slipped to her side, caught up her hand and waited. When asked about him, he answered “dead”.