The Death of the Hired Man:

Analysis, Theme, and Literary

Devices: 2022
The poem “The Death of The Hired Man” appears in North of
Boston, a collection of Robert Frost’s poems, which was first
published in the year 1914. The Death of The Hired Man poem has a
pastoral setting to it, with the principal characters being a farmer,
Warren, his wife, Mary, and an itinerant farmhand named Silas. The
Death of The Hired Man is a dialogue between the couple, and they
talk about Silas. The central plot revolves around the unexpected
return of Silas, who has betrayed the trust, loyalty, and patience of
Warren on more than one occasion. Here, we have given The Death
of the Hired Man: Analysis, Theme, and Literary Devices.

The Death of The Hired Man: Analysis

The Death of The Hired Man poem is primarily a dialogue between
the husband and the wife on the issue of the returning farmhand. But
we see some descriptive and narrative portions as well. Frost has
mastered the art of making the verse sound like a conversation
between individuals. There is a possibility that Frost was trying to
portray the verbal characteristics of the people living around him.
Throughout the dialogue between the couple, there is the constant
mention of the “hired man,” i.e., Silas, who remains the character
around whom the whole conversation is built, and whose arrival and
demise form central events in the poem. Silas happens to be a
disloyal farm servant who has repeatedly left the service of Warren
during the most crucial moments over the past many years.
Naturally, Warren’s attitude towards the farmworker is nothing close
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 to being mild and receptive, but on the contrary, cold and
untrustworthy. Silas has thus taken advantage of the forgiving nature
of his employers on many occasions, but consequently, has been
taken back into service. We get to know the innate characteristics of
Warren and Mary as the poem continues to reveal to us the
background to the current situation.

Warren wants to prevent someone from taking advantage of their

goodness. We are sure about the fact that Warren is a good man
since he has already given Silas many chances to prove his
faithfulness. But on each occasion, it has been Silas who has broken
faith. On the contrary, Mary is charitable unconditionally. The
moment Mary catches sight of her husband, she tells him to “be
kind,” especially since she has the feeling that Silas’s end is near.

Silas is absent from the stage. He is the topic of discussion without

having to appear on the conversational plane. We get to know about
this opportunist, vagabond-like helper on the farm through the
information provided to us by the couple. It is revealed that Silas
suffers from a terrible bout of inferiority complex. There is the
mention of an event that took place in the previous summer at
Warren’s farm when a boy named Harold was working alongside
Silas. It is recollected how the self-respect of Silas was repeatedly
damaged by the words of a mere college-going young boy. He is
uneducated, friendless, and is heavily bothered about his pride and
self-esteem, and in order to protect it, he refrains from approaching
his well-to-do brother, who is rich and well-known in the place where
they all live. Also, he does not want to make it obvious that he is
seeking charity from the kind couple. So, Silas declares his intent to
help Warren by ‘ditching the upper meadow and clearing the upper
pasture.’ By camouflaging his real intent, Silas hopes to safeguard
the remnants of his self-worth. Eventually, the wife wins over her
not-so-stubborn husband and forces him to consider a place at his
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 farm for Silas.

The Death of The Hired Man: Theme and

Symbolism
“The Death of the Hired Man” has more than one thematic
undertone. On one level, there is the ever-present conflict between
the belief system of Warren and Mary vis-a-vis the hired man, i.e.,
Silas. The couple faces a moral conundrum while dealing with the
situation presented by the return of the disloyal laborer. How should
they behave with the man who repeatedly deserts the person he is
supposed to be loyal to? What can be the approach to deal with such
a person? Warren, for one, feels no legal obligation to take Silas back
into his fold. He had even warned Silas the last time he worked for
him, telling him that it would be the last time he would betray his
trust and that there would not be another chance for redemption if
he chose to leave the farm again, an action we know Silas committed
yet again. This leaves Warren with little choice but to act sternly in
order to uphold his decision and protect the honor of his declaration.
So it is fairly simple for Warren to act thoroughly unconcerned about
the man at the outset of the poem.

Since Silas has been disloyal to them many times, why should they
be the ones helping him when he has fallen on dire straits? They are
not related to him like his well-to-do brother. If someone is to help
Silas, it has to be someone related to him by blood and certainly not
them. These are some of the moral dilemmas at play when both of
them speak. In another instance, Warren realizes that Silas has no
productive value any further when he gets to know from his wife
about the physical condition of his ex-employee. Accepting to let him
stay at his house would act as an added burden on his resources
without adding any overall value whatsoever. Added to this, Silas’s
presence would also create friction between him and his wife Mary
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 since both have highly varying levels of trust and concern for him.
Considering all these, it would be pertinent to take up the position of
Warren. However, the constant insistence of Mary, who has a
completely different approach towards life, makes Warren go soft
and be merciful as the poem progresses. Silas is looked upon as a
fellow human being with nowhere else to go for refuge except at the
house of his occasional master.

Here, we can take cognizance of the fact that there is a constant

inner battle raging on between two opposing forces. It is a moral
issue that is at stake at this juncture. Whether Warren and Mary
should accept Silas back or not? That is the central moral quagmire
around which Frost builds up his poem. We can sense the presence
of Christian piety in the attitude of Mary, who wants to stick to the
holy precepts of mercy and forgiveness. On the other hand, Warren
is the silent type, with more inclination towards justice while dealing
with situations like the one presented by Silas. For Mary, it is a matter
of social obligation to help Silas in his time of greatest need. The
ideals of fairness and justice are dearer to Warren, who may be seen
to adhere to the ideals associated with the maxim ‘you reap what you
sow’ or karma.

The poem presents two diverse interpretations of the term “home.”

Although Silas does not get to participate in the conversation, one
could imagine him having consciously returned to the place he
considers his “home.” Going by kinship obligations, he is supposed
to go to his brother’s house to seek help and refuge. But he decides
to come to Warren and Mary’s house instead. The poem provides us
with two definitions of the term “home.” “‘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.’” Silas’s action
of having made his way back to Warren’s farm seems to be based on
both these definitions. Despite the fact that Silas does not deserve
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 to be accepted back again, Warren relents at the end in favor of the
old and sick man.

The Death of The Hired Man: Literary Devices

The greater part of the poem The Death of the Hired Man has been
written in blank verse. It means that the poet has used the Iambic
Pentameter form, but without any rhyme. The word ‘Iambic’ has
come from the term ‘iamb,’ which denotes a metrical foot consisting
of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. In antiquity,
the iambic rhythm was thought to be the nearest to speech, and it is
the commonest type of foot in all English verse because it fits the
prevailing natural pattern of English words and phrases. Pentameter
means the five-foot line and the basic line in much English verse,
especially in blank verse and the heroic couplet.

The basic foot in English pentameters is iambic. In iambic

pentameter, every single line has to have ten syllables; however, in
this poem, that is not the case. The lines that do not abide by this
rule are called ‘variants.’ As this poem contains many dialogues, it is
apt on the part of the poet to use the iambic pentameter form mainly
because the English language is usually stressed as iambic in nature.
Being written in the dialogic form, the stanzas contained within the
poem are not ordered at regular intervals. The stanzas are closer to
prose paragraphs in function. There are breaks taking place with the
onset of each new speaker. During a shift in the speaker midway
through a line, the reader finds an indented first line in the following
stanza so as to reveal the fact that the opening line also acts as the
closing line of the previous stanza. The poet has done this for the
maintenance of metrical regularity.

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