Constructing Masculine and Feminine Traits: A Social Constructive Reading of Robert Frost’s “Home Burial”

Abstract


Introduction
A sociological conversation on "Home Burial", a poem by one of America's widely read poets, Robert Frost, is admittedly a herculean academic task to engage, especially in this 21 st century, given that this particular poetic work has received a wide range of critical attention by critics and scholars in the fields of psychology, pragmatics, linguistics, and anthropology, to mention a few, in the past few decades.Engaging this poetic work, especially from the purview of sociology, requires, with the very least of care, strong scholarly argumentation.Nonetheless, a paradigm shift from the largely critical discourse and meta-pragmatic approaches towards a sociological discourse is worthwile since it permits for a nuanced conversation on Frostian character construct and gender representation in this particular poem.
"Home Burial" is considered a 20 thcentury modernist poem by many scholars owing to its exposition of realism, and rustic life to name a few, which are constitutive elements of modernism.Since the 20 thcentury modern poetry and its poets have flowered as much as received criticism for their outlook and philosophy.The classics of T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, W.B. Yeast, to mention a few, set to stage the radical birth of this era, poignantly referred to as modernism or the 20 th -century modern poetry (Surette, 1994).This new birth is largely preceded by the erstwhile Romantic and Victorian poetic conventions such as regular meter, verse, and rhyme scheme.These fundamental conventions became dismissive for the Modernist poets like Robert Frost and others, whereas free verse, irregular but prosaic forms were favored (Steele, 1990).In this era, Modern poetry is thematically characterized by ordinary but rustic life, psychology, the subconscious, and mysticism inter alia which serve to mirror the worldview of the time.
As indicated earlier, this paper takes a sociological paradigm to study Robert Frost's poem, "Home Burial".The poem is one of Robert Frost's classics written in the 20 th century.The poem is dramatic in nature, and is primarily a panorama of rural life.Furthermore, Swennes (1970) rightly observes that Frost's "Home Burial" is a metaphoric representation of the death of a child as well as the death of marriage between a couple.Since its publication in 1914, it has received much critical attention.Scholars have interrogated the poet's metalanguage and rhetoric (e.g., Hepburn, 1962;Phelan, 2004;Karim, 2012), the romance between a couple (Summerlin, 1994), among other thematic considerations.There is also a reader-response reading of "Home Burial" (see Carroll, 1990).The present paper builds on previous scholars and/or studies by attempting to elucidate Robert Frost's gender representation in "Home Burial".Specifically, the paper explores the construct of characters and their expression of masculinity and femininity.It achieves this objective by focusing on the way these characters express emotions, anxiety, grief and fear (the constitutive of the elements of the social construction of masculine or feminine traits) when life-challenging circumstances bog them down."Home Burial" was selected for this study because it offers a unique insight into how Frost presents a sociological discourse on gender representations, although the text is not a sociological tract.Reading Robert Frost is not only scintillating but also insightful.He was an astute poet and one of the most stylized poets who constructed and reconstructed modernized ideas in his poetic anthology.
The specific objectives are two-fold.First, the paper seeks to explore the gendered manifestations of masculinity and femininity in Frost's poem, and finally, to examine how these manifestations contribute to the understanding of the subject matter and/or the themes of death of both child and marriage.The purpose is to explore Frost's modernist ideology, explicated by his reception of the reality of death as an unavoidable natural phenomenon.This manifestation aligns with the gender construct in the poem.This paper is significant, in that it contributes to theory in the critical perspectives of a Frostian reading of modern poetry.
Frost's "Home Burial" has attracted a lot of attention since its inception in academia.One of the earlier studies on Frost's "Home Burial" is Heaney (1990, pp.275-294).This study investigates Frost's achievements as a poet and asserts that in "Home Burial", Frost can bring balance between emotion and reality through language.The study reveals a kind of text to reader relationship which reveals a sort of interruption, which is resolved in the poem's last line.It says thus, "the entrapment of the couple, their feral involvement with each other as each other's quarry and companion, is not held at a safe narrative distance but interrupts into the space between reader and text" (p.285).It concludes that through language, Frost is able to harmonize this interruption, which is a mixture of the emotions of anger, panic and tyranny in the poem.
Later on, Phelan (2004, pp.627-651) demonstrates the usefulness of rhetorical ethics as a literary narrative approach in "Home Burial" which is a response to Charles Altieri's ethical criticism of Wayne C. Booth and Martha Nussbaum.For Charles Altieri, ethical criticism should be extended beyond narratives to lyrics.This advocacy, to Phelan (2004), is partial and cannot be absolute.The study proposes that instead of following Charles Altieri's advocacy, a more detailed useful approach that "views both aesthetics and ethics from a rhetorical perspective: it conceives of form and its effects as the product of an author's synthesis of the what and how of representation in the service of a multilayered communication to an audience, and it conceive of ethics as an integral part of that form" (p.631), should be favored.It concludes that this approach is suitable for Frost's narrative but lyric poem, "Home Burial" which makes it worthy of a piece to note.
Moving on, Karim (2012, pp.617-624) analyzes how the burial of the dead creates a conflict of discourse in relation to the position of law, religion and culture in Sophocles' Antigone and Robert Frost's "Home Burial".The study deals with the complexities that this conflicting discourse has on women's position, identity, and role in the cultural society in which they exist.The study argues that in Frost's poem, Amy holds a conflicting view on the position of religious obligations, the law, and the culture's position on certain life affairs such as death and burial.Also, Knepper (2017, pp.86-93) examines Frost's use of metaphor to convey meaning and expression of his acceptance of the loss, and how this creates a socio-cultural complexity in interpreting the death in "Home Burial".Specifically, it looks at Frost's proverbial use of the birch tree, and argues that Frost's proverb and metaphor mirror New England's social and cultural realities.It also presents Frost's male as a character straddled between sensitivity and insensitivity.
Then, Rahman and Sharif (2018, pp.1-9) study the grammatical items employed in the language of Frost's "Home Burial" that can be useful for EFL students.The study reveals that because the poem is a dramatic dialogue, the characters employed such common grammatical items as guessing word meaning from context, completing sentences, answering questions, changing narrative style, and so on.It concludes that these items have the potential to improve the listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills of learners in the EFL setting.
Several thematic studies on Frost's "Home Burial" have been conducted from the extant literature, ranging from its contribution to research to its usefulness to the teacher in teaching and learning.While the specific focus of such studies has largely been centered on the position of law, the use of metaphor, language and meaning as well as the rhetorical significance of "Home Burial", the gender construct and representation of masculinity and femininity has been neglected.With this dearth of study in mind, the present paper is logically rational to undertake.This paper will, therefore, significantly render Frost's poem diversionary in a theoretical outlook, and also grant further researchers the impetus to engage this poem beyond its literary tract to consider its sociological aspects.We particularly emphasize how the main characters in Frost's poem express emotions, grief, anxiety and fear in extremely intricate social events such as death.It applies the social constructivist theory of masculinity to shed light on the display of signified gender traits.

Methodology
The study is a qualitative content analysis of Frost's poem, "Home Burial" (Elo & Kyngäs, 2008).The data is primarily from the poem which was obtained from the anthology: Complete Poems of Robert Frost (1949).
The data analysis is cast within the theoretical framework of the Social Construction of Masculinity and Femininity proposed by Clare Moynihan (1998).Moynihan admits that there are many theoretical lenses from which the concepts of masculinity and femininity could be discussed.In her survey of the Theories of masculinity, Moynihan argues that masculinity could be interrogated in terms of the male gender, and in terms of certain fixed signifiers which define the man/the male gender.She observes that the male gender is signified by inexpressiveness, aggressiveness, independence, stoicism and ambition (Moynihan, 1998(Moynihan, , p.1073)).Such signifiers are classified as fixed.According to Moynihan, In the social constructivist view, male gender is practised in social interactions and is signified by beliefs and behaviour, like being hard and strong.Each society assumes that "given" attributes are fixed, although they vary across cultures and between individual (Moynihan, 1998(Moynihan, , p.1072)).
Thus, they are traits that society has constructed for and associated with the man or the male gender.Since they are a social construct, it also means that such traits naturally come to play in naturally occurring social interactions and/or social events.
In the same vein, Moynihan (1998Moynihan ( , p.1073) posits that the female gender behaves in socially constructed ways that are borne out of social contexts.She argues that whereas the male gender is inexpressive, strong, brave and aggressive, the female gender is emotional, fearing, anxious, expressive, susceptible and gullible.Accordingly, a close masculine or feminine reading of Frost's "Home Burial" reveals the manifestation of these gender traits as described by Moynihan (1998).For instance, Amy, the female character in Frost's poem, is vociferous but emotional over the loss of their child, whereas her husband is not.Madden, Barrett & Pietromonaco (2000, p.227) observe that "the notion that women are more emotional than men is entrenched in our cultural beliefs and is consistently supported by research on sex-linked stereotypes".This assertion goes to counteract Fischer and Manstead, (2000) in the preface of the book, Gender and emotion: Social psychological perspectives, where they argue thus, "women are considered to be the emotional sex, whereas men are not, is not self-evidently true" (p.ix).Madden et al. (2000) view goes to buttress the social constructivists view of masculinity and femininity where emotions signify the female gender as against the inexpressive male gender.On this gender discrepancy, Stets and Burke (2000) rightly argue that society created the distinction.They posit thus: "femininity and masculinity are rooted in the social (one's gender) rather than the biological (one's sex).Societal members decide what being male or female means (e.g., dominant or passive, brave or emotional)" (Stets and Burke, 2000, p. 997).In Frost's poem, the trait of bravado exhibited by Amy's husband, as Stets and Burke (2000) argue, is a social variable.It is not surprising, therefore, to find him being dominating/domineering and controlling his feelings over the loss of his own child.On the other hand, Amy exhibits the emotional trait that the society has stereotypically carved for the female.This way, the poem shows an outplay of masculine and feminine traits.
The social constructivists theory is suitable for a Frostian reading of the poem, "Home Burial".Thus, it enables the reader to uniquely understand the nuanced depictions of Frost's masculine and feminine constructs in the selected poem.

Results and Discussion
In this section, the paper first presents an overview of the poem as well as the poet to provide a background foundation for the analysis.This is followed by the results and discussion.
The poet, Robert Frost, was born in San Francisco and moved to Massachusetts at eight after his father's death.He stayed in New England teaching to support his family.Despite his struggles as a poet, Frost wrote most of his poems while teaching.The sad events of his life as a child coupled with the tragic death of his children and wife may have influenced his unique poetic writings."Home Burial", one of his classic poems, was written in 1914.The poem was written in blank verse, which makes it depart from the rhyme scheme pattern conformed to by the Romanticist and the Victorians.It is made up of 120 lines.It is dramatic or narrative in form and style.Many critics note it is a classic lyrical narrative of rustic life, especially involving Frost in New England during his migration to the countryside.As a 20 thcentury poem, it explicates the complexities of life and reality, emotional entrapment, and how the death of child and marriage leads to a gap in communication between a couple inter alia.The poem is overlayed with the tone of pessimism, which characterizes the thematic style of modern poetry.

Constructing Masculinity and Femininity in "Home Burial"
This section presents the analysis of Frost's "Home Burial."It considers how Frost constructs his main characters from the perspective of masculinity and femininity.First, Frost introduces readers to his main characters in this poem: a male and a female.He identifies these characters first through the effective use of the gendered pronouns "He", and "She" in the first and second lines respectively as shown below, and throughout the poem.These two characters are actively engaged in a narrative where the narrator (intext narrator) is telling the narratee something that happened.For instance, Frost narrates thus, He saw her from the bottom of the stairs Before she saw him.She was starting down… (Line 1-2) He as used in the first line above represents an unnamed man, who is apparently the husbandman in the poem whereas the She represents Amy, the wife of the unnamed man.These are two gender beings (e.g., a male and a female or a man and a woman).This sex-type grouping is a sociocultural phenomenon (Stets and Burke, 2000).Being sex/gender opposites, Frost ascribes to each of them a signifier that portrays each as a socio-cultural construct exhibiting traits of masculinity or femininity.This gives the reader the insight and perspective to assess these traits of masculinity and femininity.For instance, the woman is ascribed with fear as a signifier for the female gender.As she climbs down the stairs, she is filled with fear.This is pointed out in the lines below: Looking back over her shoulder at some fear.

She took a doubtful step and then undid it To raise herself and look again. He spoke
Advancing toward her: 'What is it you see From up there always-for I want to know.'She turned and sank upon her skirts at that, And her face changed from terrified to dull.(Lines 3-9) Whatever orchestrated this fear is yet unknown from the lines above, but the female character is certainly seen to be terrified and/or filled with fear.Under the same circumstance, the dialogue reveals that whereas the female exhibits this feminine trait, the male demonstrates bravado by advancing towards her to counteract the fear.It is important to highlight that fear-a signifier for women-under the spectacle of death is a social label that conventional culture has attached to women and that men's presence can potentially mitigate.Therefore, Amy, demonstrating fear perhaps, due to the absence of her husband around her or the death of her child as portrayed in the poem, is symptomatic of femininity.This agrees with Moynihan (1998) who observes that in certain social events whereas the male gender demonstrates bravado, the female gender exhibits fear.This is also in tandem with the notion that when it comes to the expression of specific emotions: "men report less intropunitive emotions, like, for example, shame, guilt, sadness, and fear, than do women" (Brody & Hall, 1993;Fischer, 1993cited in Jansz, 2000, p.171).

Additionally,
Frost's characters demonstrate an instance of anxiety which is another characteristic feature of the social concept of gender.This observation, though contravenes Moynihan's (1998) comparison of sex-stereotypes in terms of signifiers, which asserts that the female gender is more anxious than the male, the researchers share a contrary view that in Frost's poem, the male gender is associated more with this signifier.For instance, following the dialogue in Lines 1 to 9 above, the man (Amy's husband) does not hesitate to find out what causes Amy's fear.He pressures Amy to put him in the know of what she sees, which terrifies her.He would force him to find out.Perhaps, this may be considered as Frost's treatment of the male gender's overarching sense of trying to provide defense for a terrified wife.The following lines portray this sense of anxiety:

He said to gain time: 'What is it you see,'
Mounting until she cowered under him.'I will find out now-you must tell me, dear.' She, in her place, refused him any help (Lines 10-13) In the above lines, Frost's male character is anxious to find out what it is that has caused Amy's fear but Amy in her hesitation, will refuse him.Under this naturally occurring circumstance, the trait of masculinity, per Moynihan's (1998) assessment, is violated or, said more mildly, 'shifted'.
Again, Frost gives his reader an insight into how his two characters perceive the reality of death.Realism is a characteristic feature of modern poetry that Frost and the like bring to light in their poems.In the poem, the female character, Amy, is emotional about their child's demise.Her emotional trauma is heightened at the sight of his grave which her husband dug by himself.Peeping through the window upstairs, she is terrified at the sight of the grave and the burial scene.And so, she cannot but be filled with fear, thus, emotionally traumatized.This expression of emotion, contrary to her husband's inexpression, compels Amy to label her husband a blind creature who cannot see anything wrong with burying his own child.Saying thus, "Blind creature; and awhile he didn't see" (Line 16).On this point, the following views on the matter of realism in relation to the poem and the characters are shared: a) One reality is that death is a naturally unavoidable phenomenon.In addition to being a natural occurrence, internment (burial) is the customary practice followed when a person's death is confirmed.These are two realities that Amy, the female character, fails to acknowledge or recognize whereas her unnamed husband duly recognizes as such.This way, there is a complex conflict with reality (realism) between the feminine character and the masculine character.Does this make Amy insane, illogical, hypersensitive, or unrealistic as many critics have labelled her?, (Carroll, 1990).Perhaps, yes, perhaps no, but on this, the researchers side with Carroll's assertion that Amy is "perfectly sane" (p.143), and the researchers add that she is only exhibiting her feminine trait.b) Cognitively and psychoanalytically, mothers (women or the female gender) show deeper filial attachment to their own children, perhaps more than men.This way, the demise of the child attracts an uncontrollable emotional expression on the part of the woman than the man.Amy's emotional expression is sociocultural but also natural.The same is the case of her husband's inexpression because it is culturally but socially unacceptable for the man to express his deep emotional feelings under such circumstances of life such as death.In support of the masculine trait of the male gender in relation to his inexpression of emotion, Jansz (2000) writes, "a man stands alone, bears the tribulations of life…alone without expressing it" (p.168, italics mine).Amy's emotional expressiveness also resonates with the finding that "women are more emotional than men which is entrenched in our cultural beliefs and is consistently supported by research on sex-linked stereotypes" (Madden et al., 2000, p.227, italics mine).
Additionally, Swennes (1970) observes that "in "Home Burial", a husband and wife confront each other over the death of their child months before.The wife was filled with bitterness on the day of the child's burial, and now she acknowledges her growing resentment toward her husband" (p.365).From this finding, it is argued that Frost brings to the fore another feature of masculinity and femininity.There is an interdependence of grief, resentment, bitterness and emotional outburst shared in parallel ways.Amy, the female gender is the one who is processing all of this towards the husband, the male gender, hence, creating yet another gender discrepancy in terms of grieve and emotional expression.The following lines reveal this: 'You don't,' she challenged.'Tell me what it is.' 'The wonder is I didn't see at once.I never noticed it from here before.I must be wonted to it-that's the reason.The little graveyard where my people are!So small the window frames the whole of it.Not so much larger than a bedroom, is it?There are three stones of slate and one of marble, Broad-shouldered little slabs there in the sunlight On the sidehill.We haven't to mind those.But I understand: it is not the stones, But the child's mound-' 'Don't,don't,don't,don't, From the lines above, Frost's grave picturesque is at the heart of the emotional trauma which the characters (both the male and the female) conflict over.During the burial, Amy is particularly struck by the sight of the child's grave, which Frost presented as as the "child's mound."The size of it is less than a bedroom, yet it is where her husband has chosen to keep her child forever.For Amy, her husband is demonstrating insensitivity.She says: If you had any feelings, you that dug With your own hand-how could you?his little grave; I saw you from that very window there, Making the gravel leap and leap in air, Leap up, like that, like that, and land so lightly And roll back down the mound beside the hole.I thought, Who is that man?I didn't know you.And I crept down the stairs and up the stairs To look again, and still your spade kept lifting.(Lines 76-84) The way and manner her husband dug the child's grave, his lifting of the mounds, as much as the entire burial process sickens Amy to the core.The mere sight of her husband in the process heightened the emotional trauma in her.The source of her agony is this: she claims that the spouse has never expressed sorrow at the death of the child.This point of insensitivity on the part of her husband is further interpolated in the following lines where Amy feels that it is not right for her husband to resume talk of everyday concerns immediately after burying his child.She says, I heard your rumbling voice Out in the kitchen, and I don't know why, But I went near to see with my own eyes.You could sit there with the stains on your shoes Of the fresh earth from your own baby's grave And talk about your everyday concerns.You had stood the spade up against the wall Outside there in the entry, for I saw it.'(Lines 85-92) Amy is surprised that in the midst of this pain, her insensitive husband has the time to "…talk about…everyday concerns" (Line 90, pronoun emphasis mine), rather than grief their departed child with her.This intensifies their conflict, and then he tries to console Amy, saying: Let me into your grief.I'm not so much Unlike other folks as your standing there Apart would make me out.Give me my chance.I do think, though, you overdo it a little.What was it brought you up to think it the thing To take your mother-loss of a first child So inconsolably-in the face of love.(Lines 62-68) The argument from the above lines is that whereas Amy is emotionally sensitive, compassionate, and griefing altogether, her husband is not.Jansz (2000) believes that Amy's husband is demonstrating stoicism, which he explains thus, "a man does not share his pain, does not grieve openly, and avoids strong, dependent and warm feelings" (p.168).This is a feature of masculinity.On the contrary, Amy's open expressiveness of grief under this circumstance is also a point of femininity as put forward by Moynihan (1998).
Furthermore, Summerlin's (1994) observation of grief is significant in analyzing Frost's poem.As already established, the subject of this grief is the death of the child.Amy, the female character, views genuine griefing of their child as an important duty.One that both parents should care about.But to her, her husband, only profanes his sorrow.

The nearest friends can go
With anyone to death, comes so far short They might as well not try to go at all.No, from the time when one is sick to death, One is alone, and he dies more alone.Friends make pretense of following to the grave, But before one is in it, their minds are turned And making the best of their way back to life And living people, and things they understand.But the world's evil.I won't have grief so If I can change it (Lines 101-111) Summerlin (1994) infers from the aforementioned lines that Amy's husband profanes genuine sorrow since he dug the child's grave personally and was able to instantly turn his attention to "everyday concerns" afterward.Further, Summerlin notes that the unnamed husband moves between a desire to "be taught" about his emotional clumsiness and a determination not to permit his wife to create any public embarrassment.Ultimately Amy is resisting not only her husband's awkward entreaties.He represents a world of casual selfishness and shallow emotion.To her, his inability to experience grief is the inability of humanity in general (Summerlin, 1994, p.53).
A contrary opinion to Summerlin's overgeneralization that the unnamed man's 'inability to grieve is the inability of humanity in general', is shared and would rather contend that both genders are manifesting these emotional discrepancies because of their social constructs.Therefore, their expressions are independent of the other.Moynihan believes that "a man may have a range of traits.The ones he will express will be affected by the context he is in" (Moynihan, 1998(Moynihan, , p.1074)).Based on this, it is argued that whereas Amy is manifesting femininity by being responsive to grief, which is a feminine signifier, her husband is manifesting masculinity by controlling his emotions, contrary to Amy's viewpoint that he is generally selfish.
Another reality that Amy misses out on is the reality of the longevity of human existence.Using the metaphor of the birch tree, Frost's male character points to Amy to brace herself with the intrigues and intricacies that exist with this life, citing for instance, the birch tree, which is fragile, weak and cannot survive for a long time, for a case study.Even at that Amy punches holes in her husband's supposed worldview.She says: 'I can repeat the very words you were saying: "Three foggy mornings and one rainy day Will rot the best birch fence a man can build."Think of it, talk like that at such a time!What had how long it takes a birch to rot To do with what was in the darkened parlor?You couldn't care!The nearest friends can go With anyone to death, comes so far short They might as well not try to go at all.No, from the time when one is sick to death, One is alone, and he dies more alone.Friends make pretense of following to the grave, But before one is in it, their minds are turned And making the best of their way back to life And living people, and things they understand.But the world's evil.I won't have grief so If I can change it. Oh,I won't, Invariably, it is not Amy's business to change their worldview on death because this world in itself is 'evil', to quote her own words.And although she finally comes to terms with the fact that she cannot perpetually grief her departed child, my argument is that in the matters of death and the reality of human existence with "Home Burial" as a case study, the male gender is considered more receptive to this reality than the female gender.This is borne out of the social construct theory, which arrogates this sense of realism to men more than women.

Conclusion
This paper examines Robert Frost's "Home Burial" from the perspectives of masculinity and femininity.It leans on Moynihan's (1998) social constructivist theory to argue that socio-cultural contexts significantly influence emotions, grief, and fear.The paper demonstrates that Frost's poem contains both masculine and feminine expressions that mirror cultural characteristics.In line with the social constructive theory, males are distinctively inexpressive, aggressive, brave, and independent whereas feamles are fearing, anxious, expressive, susceptible and gullible to emotions, fear and grief.These traits are evident in Amy and her husband's interactions and responses to death in Frost's "Home Burial."Thus, we draw the conclusion that Frost is aware of the gender disparities that persist in conventional society and provides an overview for the sociological understanding of a literary tract like "Home Burial." The study has implications for both theory and practice.First, it is possible to analyse Frost from a sociological perspective, finding that he favours men over women when it comes to emotional issues.The discussions lucidly show that Frost has a different conception of men than of women, and we have shown that this construct is influenced by society.Therefore, there is room to broaden the conceptualization of this poetry through a variety of sociological theoretical analyses.As a recommendation, it could be interesting for future studies to investigate why Frost believes that men are better at controlling their emotions than women.