Final answer:
In Robert Frost's poem 'Home Burial', the central themes are Grief and Gender, which are depicted through the conflict between a husband and wife mourning the loss of their child. These themes are further compared to elegiac traditions, including Frost's own work and William Carlos Williams's 'The Dead Baby'.
Step-by-step explanation:
The central themes in Robert Frost’s poem Home Burial are D. Grief and E. Gender. The poem poignantly illustrates the varying ways in which a husband and wife cope with the loss of their child, thus highlighting their individual responses to grief. The tension between the couple also delves into the theme of gender, exploring the differing societal expectations placed on men and women when it comes to expressing emotion and mourning.
Comparing Frost’s Home Burial to William Carlos Williams’s The Dead Baby, both poems are elegies that contemplate death. While they share the common ground of mourning, each poet approaches the subject differently, imbued with their unique poetic styles and perspectives.
Robert Frost’s poetry often revolves around themes of loss, change, and the continuous cycle of decay and rebuilding, whether it be in the natural world or in human relationships. This theme is exemplified in “Home Burial,” where the cycle of the couple’s relationship mirrors the annual repair of walls in Mending Wall, another of Frost’s works. The poem captures both the difficulty of communicating in the face of tragedy and the societal roles that can constrain such communication.