The Death of the Hired Man – an Overview

Robert Frost Shows His Skill in Conversational Blank Verse

Jul 17, 2009 David Todd

Robert Frost's "The Death of the Hired Man" demonstrates the art of blank verse. It helped to make him one of the outstanding poets in the early 20th Century.

Robert Frost published his second book of poetry, North of Boston, in England in 1914 and in America in 1916. This, coming on the heels of A Boy’s Will, Frost’s first book, and his returning to America after a few years in England, propelled him into the front ranks of contemporary American poetry.

Yet, Frost looked back in time for his poetic style. Rejecting the Imagist movement that was then the rage, and the modernist movement just beginning, Frost wrote his poems in the well known forms that had worked for centuries. He used rhyme; he used meter; his poems were to be read aloud, not just looked at on the page. His use of form included blank verse—unrhymed iambic pentameter—that had been used successfully by such as Milton, Wordsworth, and Tennyson.

Frost Weaves a Story of the Farm

Blank verse is Frost’s form for “The Death of the Hired Man.” This is conversational blank verse, as 143 of its 166 lines are a conversation between Warren and Mary, a farm couple who returned to each other’s company at the end of a busy day apart, and Mary informs Warren, “Silas is back.”

Silas was a man they hired in the past to help out on the farm, but who proved unreliable, leaving for better wages elsewhere or for whatever reason. He was somewhat cantankerous, and talked about doing more than he ever could. Still, as Warren observes, Silas did one thing well: build a wagonload of hay.

“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.

But Silas is at the end of his years. Mary says, “he has come home to die”. She wanted Warren to be kind to the old, wandering-prone Silas.

Simple Ways Frost Uses to Show the Scene

Blank verse, being a rigid form without rhyme, can sound un-poetic. The meter is the only poetic device that average readers will recognize. So the poet must add other devices, such as internal sonic nuances, images, metaphor, and symbolism, to keep the poem from being merely prose cut into lines. Frost does that masterfully with this poem. Note how he sets the scene by describing action in the setting. Mary “sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table”; she “ran on tiptoe down the darkened passage” to intercept Warren and talk to him before he saw Silas.

Later, as they sit on the front steps of the house in the night:

“Part of a moon was falling down the west,

Dragging the whole sky with it to the hill”,

and:

“ ‘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.”

This suggest an moment well after twilight but before full darkness of night. Such subtle additions say much about the scene, and the people in it. Frost does not have to say, “It was evening of a long farm-family day, and the moon set early.” The brief descriptions he provided, and the statements of the characters, tell all the reader needs to know of the surroundings and the people involved.

A Chilling Ending Foretold by the Title

Mary has managed to detain Warren long enough that she feels he will treat Silas with kindness, so she says, “Go, look for yourself./ But Warren, please remember how it is;/ …/…/ He has a plan. You mustn’t laugh at him.” Warren goes, while Mary muses again, on the moon this time.

Warren returns quicker than he ought if he were going to have a conversation with the man who wanted to be taken in. To Mary’s question, Warren has but a word: “Dead.” What was suggested in the title has come true. Silas died alone, but in a familiar place with friends nearby. The reader is left to ask questions: why did Silas return; did he realize he was so close to death; was Warren going to let him stay; was Silas really planning to help “ditch the meadow”?

Frost tells the reader just enough. Though filled with unanswered questions, the reader leaves the poem fulfilled, believing the poet has conveyed all that is needed. Future articles in this series will cover:

Character development in “The Death of the Hired Man”

Frost’s effective use of blank verse in “The Death of the Hired Man”

The copyright of the article The Death of the Hired Man – an Overview in Poetry is owned by David Todd. Permission to republish The Death of the Hired Man – an Overview in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Robert Frost's Poems are a Source of Inspiration

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