Final answer:
The speakers in 'Mending Wall' and 'Home Burial' offer contrasting worldviews and emotional attitudes. One questions the need for boundaries while the other deals with grief and failed communication. Characterization is used to reveal their complexities and personal perspectives.
Step-by-step explanation:
When comparing and contrasting the speakers in "Mending Wall" and "Home Burial," it's important to understand the dynamics of their individual worldviews and emotional attitudes. In Robert Frost's "Mending Wall," the speaker reflects on the tradition of building a wall between his property and his neighbor's, questioning the necessity of barriers between people. His neighbor, on the other hand, upholds the adage "Good fences make good neighbors," indicating a more conventional and perhaps closed-off view of the world, favoring boundaries and a clear delineation between private spaces.
In "Home Burial," the speaker is a husband who struggles with his wife's intense grief over the loss of their child. The emotional attitude of the husband is one of confusion and helplessness; he cannot understand his wife's prolonged mourning and wishes for her to move on. The wife, devastated and unable to find comfort in her husband's rational approach to grief, embodies an emotional response that is deeply connected to the physical location of her child's grave.
The speakers in both poems are characters in their stories, each offering a unique perspective informed by their personal experiences and emotions. The speaker in "Mending Wall" acts as a questioning modern mind, while the speakers in "Home Burial" illustrate the complexities of personal grief and the challenges of communication within a marriage. These characters are shaped by characterization techniques, weaving in elements of direct and indirect characterization to reveal their inner worlds and relational dynamics.