Death of the Hired Man, The Analysis

Mary sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table

Waiting for Warren. When she heard his step,

She ran on tip-toe down the darkened passage

To meet him in the doorway with the news

And put him on his guard. "Silas is back."

She pushed him outward with her through the door

And shut it after her. "Be kind," she said.

She took the market things from Warren's arms

And set them on the porch, then drew him down

To sit beside her on the wooden steps.



"When was I ever anything but kind to him?

But I'll not have the fellow back," he said.

"I told him so last haying, didn't I?

'If he left then,' I said, 'that ended it.'

What good is he? Who else will harbour him

At his age for the little he can do?

What help he is there's no depending on.

Off he goes always when I need him most.

'He thinks he ought to earn a little pay,

Enough at least to buy tobacco with,

So he won't have to beg and be beholden.'

'All right,' I say, 'I can't afford to pay

Any fixed wages, though I wish I could.'

'Someone else can.' 'Then someone else will have to.'

I shouldn't mind his bettering himself

If that was what it was. You can be certain,

When he begins like that, there's someone at him

Trying to coax him off with pocket-money,--

In haying time, when any help is scarce.

In winter he comes back to us. I'm done."



"Sh! not so loud: he'll hear you," Mary said.



"I want him to: he'll have to soon or late."



"He's worn out. He's asleep beside the stove.

When I came up from Rowe's I found him here,

Huddled against the barn-door fast asleep,

A miserable sight, and frightening, too--

You needn't smile--I didn't recognise him--

I wasn't looking for him--and he's changed.

Wait till you see."



"Where did you say he'd been?"



"He didn't say. I dragged him to the house,

And gave him tea and tried to make him smoke.

I tried to make him talk about his travels.

Nothing would do: he just kept nodding off."



"What did he say? Did he say anything?"



"But little."



"Anything? Mary, confess

He said he'd come to ditch the meadow for me."



"Warren!"



"But did he? I just want to know."



"Of course he did. What would you have him say?

Surely you wouldn't grudge the poor old man

Some humble way to save his self-respect.

He added, if you really care to know,

He meant to clear the upper pasture, too.

That sounds like something you have heard before?

Warren, I wish you could have heard the way

He jumbled everything. I stopped to look

Two or three times--he made me feel so queer--

To see if he was talking in his sleep.

He ran on Harold Wilson--you remember--

The boy you had in haying four years since.

He's finished school, and teaching in his college.

Silas declares you'll have to get him back.

He says they two will make a team for work:

Between them they will lay this farm as smooth!

The way he mixed that in with other things.

He thinks young Wilson a likely lad, though daft

On education--you know how they fought

All through July under the blazing sun,

Silas up on the cart to build the load,

Harold along beside to pitch it on."



"Yes, I took care to keep well out of earshot."



"Well, those days trouble Silas like a dream.

You wouldn't think they would. How some things linger!

Harold's young college boy's assurance piqued him.

After so many years he still keeps finding

Good arguments he sees he might have used.

I sympathise. I know just how it feels

To think of the right thing to say too late.

Harold's associated in his mind with Latin.

He asked me what I thought of Harold's saying

He studied Latin like the violin

Because he liked it--that an argument!

He said he couldn't make the boy believe

He could find water with a hazel prong--

Which showed how much good school had ever done him.

He wanted to go over that. But most of all

He thinks if he could have another chance

To teach him how to build a load of hay----"



"I know, that's Silas' one accomplishment.

He bundles every forkful in its place,

And tags and numbers it for future reference,

So he can find and easily dislodge it

In the unloading. Silas does that well.

He takes it out in bunches like big birds' nests.

You never see him standing on the hay

He's trying to lift, straining to lift himself."



"He thinks if he could teach him that, he'd be

Some good perhaps to someone in the world.

He hates to see a boy the fool of books.

Poor Silas, so concerned for other folk,

And nothing to look backward to with pride,

And nothing to look forward to with hope,

So now and never any different."



Part of a moon was falling down the west,

Dragging the whole sky with it to the hills.

Its light poured softly in her lap. She saw

And spread her apron to it. She put out her hand

Among the harp-like morning-glory strings,

Taut with the dew from garden bed to eaves,

As if she played unheard the tenderness

That wrought on him beside her in the night.

"Warren," she said, "he has come home to die:

You needn't be afraid he'll leave you this time."



"Home," he mocked gently.



"Yes, what else but home?

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."



"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."



Warren leaned out and took a step or two,

Picked up a little stick, and brought it back

And broke it in his hand and tossed it by.

"Silas has better claim on us you think

Than on his brother? Thirteen little miles

As the road winds would bring him to his door.

Silas has walked that far no doubt to-day.

Why didn't he go there? His brother's rich,

A somebody--director in the bank."



"He never told us that."



"We know it though."



"I think his brother ought to help, of course.

I'll see to that if there is need. He ought of right

To take him in, and might be willing to--

He may be better than appearances.

But have some pity on Silas. Do you think

If he'd had any pride in claiming kin

Or anything he looked for from his brother,

He'd keep so still about him all this time?"



"I wonder what's between them."



"I can tell you.

Silas is what he is--we wouldn't mind him--

But just the kind that kinsfolk can't abide.

He never did a thing so very bad.

He don't know why he isn't quite as good

As anyone. He won't be made ashamed

To please his brother, worthless though he is."



"I can't think Si ever hurt anyone."



"No, but he hurt my heart the way he lay

And rolled his old head on that sharp-edged chair-back.

He wouldn't let me put him on the lounge.

You must go in and see what you can do.

I made the bed up for him there to-night.

You'll be surprised at him--how much he's broken.

His working days are done; I'm sure of it."



"I'd not be in a hurry to say that."



"I haven't been. Go, look, see for yourself.

But, Warren, please remember how it is:

He's come to help you ditch the meadow.

He has a plan. You mustn't laugh at him.

He may not speak of it, and then he may.

I'll sit and see if that small sailing cloud

Will hit or miss the moon."



It hit the moon.

Then there were three there, making a dim row,

The moon, the little silver cloud, and she.



Warren returned--too soon, it seemed to her,

Slipped to her side, caught up her hand and waited.



"Warren," she questioned.



"Dead," was all he answered.

.: :.

this peom is excellent robert frost does an excellent job. yankees won the world series that is 27 now!! silas is coming back home to warren and mary because that is his true home and he realizes that it is the end for him.

| Posted on 2009-11-05 | by a guest

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"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."
I'm a little confused in this passage. What point is Warren & Mary making?

| Posted on 2009-06-09 | by a guest

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oh dang, im trying to write an essay over this poem for my comp class and its kicking my ass ladies and gents!

| Posted on 2009-04-13 | by a guest

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oh dang, im trying to write an essay over this poem for my comp class and its kicking my ass ladies and gents!

| Posted on 2009-04-13 | by a guest

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It has some great Alliteration at the beginning "Mary sat Musing" and "Waiting for Warren"

| Posted on 2009-04-02 | by a guest

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I still don't get the part when they mention Harold and how he became a good person by finishing high school and moving to College.
Please someone help me, we have a quiz on this poem !
Thanks!

| Posted on 2009-02-28 | by a guest

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I still don't get the part when they mention Harold and how he became a good person by finishing high school and moving to College.
Please someone help me, we have a quiz on this poem !
Thanks!

| Posted on 2009-02-28 | by a guest

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This poem tells of a man who periodically returns to a farm family to help with the haying. The family is kind to him, but many times he has left for better wages when he was needed most. The man always returns to this farm when he’s down and out, even though his brother is an officer in a bank and lives 13 miles away. The husband, reluctant to take Silas in yet again, asks why Silas doesn’t go to his family, and his compassionate wife answers:
"But have some pity on Silas. Do you think
If he’d had any pride in claiming kin
Or anything he looked for from his brother,
He’d keep so still about him all this time?”

“I wonder what’s between them.”

“I can tell you.
Silas is what he is—we wouldn’t mind him—
But just the kind that kinsfolk can’t abide.
He never did a thing so very bad.
He don’t know why he isn’t quite as good
As anyone. He won’t be made ashamed
To please his brother, worthless though he is.”
I'm struck by what Frost says about family relationships -- about people who are a disappointment to their families and the family's attitude toward them. The wife comments are very insightful and seem full of truth. By presenting his poem as a discussion between a husband and a wife, Frost presents this issue in an indirect way, much in the way Mark Twain commented on the slavery through the story of Huckleberry Finn.
I find this poem so moving because of the compassion and kindness of the woman. And her husband is a good man who will not make her turn old Silas away.
Like a previous poster, I was struck by these lines –
“Poor Silas, so concerned for other folk,
And nothing to look backward to with pride,
And nothing to look forward to with hope,
So now and never any different.”
Those line are enormously sad when applied to the whole of a person's life.
The husband did not want to take in the old hired man who had left him in the lurch so many times in the past. But his wife knew the man had come home to die, and she could count on her husband to listen, and to cherish her goodness and compassion.
What is most profound about this poem is that there is such goodness and kindness in the world. The poem is not saccharine, it rings true. While it ends sadly with the death of old Silas, the reader is left feeling grateful for the kindness of the husband and wife who accepted him for who he was, and took him in yet again.

| Posted on 2009-02-14 | by a guest

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i have not yet read this poem and i will do an exam based on this particular poem. can some bright student or teacher sum this up for me???

| Posted on 2009-01-27 | by a guest

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The lines about home as a place where they have to take you in are the most famous and the most cited in this poem.
Yet the lines that blazed into my memory 40 years ago in high school, even as the rest of the poem faded away are:
And nothing to look backward to with pride
And nothing to look forward to with hope
A powerful summation of a man who has lost any sense of himself as meaningful and has therefore lost his grip on life.
John Oleski

| Posted on 2008-11-02 | by a guest

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i hate this poem so much we had to do it in school, its so difficult to understand

| Posted on 2008-10-26 | by a guest

.: We come to home to die :.

Home haunts this poem. It is where Silas has come to die. Where he is know and understood. And the most powerful words capture Silas' story.
"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."
These word's also convey Mary and Warren's story. Silas may not deserve, may have no claim on Mary and Warren's love yet they have accept him and in their kindness give him a place to die.

| Posted on 2008-05-28 | by a guest

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Frost has taken a very interesting view in this, one of his lengthier poems. He is hazy about his characters, making them believable but mysterious. His use of literary allusions reveal that he was a very well-read man. Many of his similes were of nature, giving him a transcendental aura.

| Posted on 2008-04-08 | by a guest

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Silas is not in this poem directly, but you still get a good idea of who he is. Just a man trying to make a living. How Frost does this is just outstanding, painting a picture with the words of this poem. Silas, to me, is a very prideful man. He takes deep pride in what he does, and because of this pride, he cannot go to his rich brother, and he cannot accept that Harold has moved on to be a teacher of things that Silas just doesn't believe in. Great poem.

| Posted on 2007-05-08 | by a guest

.: :.

Silas is not in this poem directly, but you still get a good idea of who he is. Just a man trying to make a living. How Frost does this is just outstanding, painting a picture with the words of this poem. Silas, to me, is a very prideful man. He takes deep pride in what he does, and because of this pride, he cannot go to his rich brother, and he cannot accept that Harold has moved on to be a teacher of things that Silas just doesn't believe in. Great poem.

| Posted on 2007-05-08 | by a guest

.: :.

Silas is not in this poem directly, but you still get a good idea of who he is. Just a man trying to make a living. How Frost does this is just outstanding, painting a picture with the words of this poem. Silas, to me, is a very prideful man. He takes deep pride in what he does, and because of this pride, he cannot go to his rich brother, and he cannot accept that Harold has moved on to be a teacher of things that Silas just doesn't believe in. Great poem.

| Posted on 2007-05-08 | by a guest

.: :.

Silas is not in this poem directly, but you still get a good idea of who he is. Just a man trying to make a living. How Frost does this is just outstanding, painting a picture with the words of this poem. Silas, to me, is a very prideful man. He takes deep pride in what he does, and because of this pride, he cannot go to his rich brother, and he cannot accept that Harold has moved on to be a teacher of things that Silas just doesn't believe in. Great poem.

| Posted on 2007-05-08 | by a guest

.: :.

The meaning of home lies somewhere in these words for all of us. For Silas it was the farm he went back to year after year where he found someone to take care of him despite some of the things he'd done. It was the place he wanted most to be when he died. It was the only place where he felt he ever made a difference with others.
Frost's halmark imagery is evident in his ability to paint the farm with his dialog between two characters and have it seem like a normal if intense conversation. His keen understanding of people is evident in Warrens gruff exterior and Mary's compassion. This piece is found in many anthologies of madern and it was bad

| Posted on 2006-05-10 | by Approved Guest

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Death of a Hired Man is one of Frost's longer works. All but a few lines are dialog between Mary and her husband Warren about Silas, an old itenerant worker who comes to their farm when he needs money. Only this time Mary senses that there is something different. Silas looks old and unwell, and is rambling on about things that happened on the farm years before. She's pleading with Warren to let Silas stay that this is home for him, even though he has a rich brother that is a banker who lives nearby. This is where the greatest point of impact is. It's in these for line that haunt:
"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."

The meaning of home lies somewhere in these words for all of us. For Silas it was the farm he went back to year after year where he found someone to take care of him despite some of the things he'd done. It was the place he wanted most to be when he died. It was the only place where he felt he ever made a difference with others.
Frost's halmark imagery is evident in his ability to paint the farm with his dialog between two characters and have it seem like a normal if intense conversation. His keen understanding of people is evident in Warrens gruff exterior and Mary's compassion. This piece is found in many anthologies of madern american writers as one of his bests works, and I have to agree.

| Posted on 2004-10-24 | by jaycee