Frost, Hughes, Alexie
The Meaning of "Home" in Frost's "Hired Hand," Hughes' "Landlord" and Alexie's "I Will Redeem"
Robert Frost writes in "The Death of the Hired Hand," "Home is the place where, when you have to go there, / They have to take you in" (122-3). Implicit in these lines is the notion that "home" carries certain rules. "Home" is not just a place devoid of higher meaning, but an abstract idea -- a concept bound by a principle of belonging, of submitting, of caring. Just as Langston Hughes shows in "Ballad of the Landlord" (with the tension between negligent landlord and suffering tenant) or as Sherman Alexie shows in "What You Pawn I Will Redeem" (Jackson sharing a portion of his winnings with Mary, whom he considers family -- "It's an Indian thing"), the principles of "home" are understood and upheld by those who realize its deeper meaning. This paper will analyze the way these three works portray that deeper meaning.
Sherman Alexie's Jackson illustrates the main principle of "home" when he hands a fifth of his lottery winnings to the check-out girl who sold him the ticket. He insists that according to the rules of his tribe, "When you win, you're supposed to share with your family." Mary (the check-out girl) answers, "I'm not your family." Jackson replies, "Yes, you are," and makes her take the $20. She takes it, realizing that in a larger, communal sense, they are family. The realization puts a smile on her face. It is this "sense" that prompts Robert Frost's Silas to return to the farm of Mary and Warren in "The Death of the Hired Man." Silas is an old, beaten-down, mostly worthless farmhand, who has a tendency to wander away from the job just when he is needed most. Warren wants nothing to do with him, but Mary cannot help but feel a profound sympathy for Silas. She sees in him a man in need, a man not to be turned away or denied shelter -- because, after...
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