This was a very sad poem about death and failure to communicate. First of all, we know the couple lost their young child. The mother is still grieving and the father seems to have moved on in the mourning process. The mother can't seem to understand why the father does not feel the same way she does. She thinks he's being callous. Instead of crying with her he dug the child's grave. "If you had any feelings, you dug/ With your own hand--how could you?--his little grave"
I think the wife is wrong to assume her husband is not grieving as well, I just think he has a different way of grieving than her...he put all his pain and sorrow into the physical work of digging the grave. The father wants very badly for his wife to stay with him and find comfort in him, but he feels she's being a little overdramatic. "I do think, though, you overdo it a little." He could definitely try harder too when it comes to empathizing with his wife.
It's too bad neither person is willing to accept the other person's way of showing sadness and pain. This makes for another tragedy, now it's not just the death of their child, but also the falling apart of their marriage.
I know that Frost lost children of his own so this poem probably has a lot of real meaning for him. I wonder if he experienced this type of conflict with his own wife..?
I also think that this poem is about a failure to communicate. but I don't think this marriage is going to fall apart. The very fact of his trying to listen to her: "I will find out now--you must tell me dear"(L12) and "There' s something I should like to ask you dear" (L42) and then the last line of the poem: "I'll follow and bring you back by force. I will!--(L116)I see these lines as signs of his determination to somehow sort it out and that he'll not give either of them any rest until they have
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