The Meaning of "Home" in Frost, Hughes, and Alexie
This paper examines how Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, and Sherman Alexie each portray the deeper meaning of "home" through their respective works. Drawing on Frost's "The Death of the Hired Hand," Hughes' "Ballad of the Landlord," and Alexie's "What You Pawn I Will Redeem," the paper argues that "home" is not merely a physical place but an abstract principle rooted in fraternal charity, belonging, and spiritual obligation. Through close reading and symbolic analysis — including the significance of the name "Mary" across two works and the contrast between characters who embody or deny charitable love — the paper traces how each author uses the concept of home to reveal something essential about human community and moral responsibility.
- Introduction: Home as an Abstract Principle: Home defined as principle of belonging and charity
- Fraternal Charity in Alexie and Frost: Jackson and Mary embody communal obligation
- The Symbolic Significance of Mary: Shared name carries theological and thematic weight
- Hughes and the Absence of Charity: Landlord circumvents spiritual law with earthly law
- Warren, the Landlord, and the Limits of Deserving: Warren and landlord see home as earned, not given
- Jackson's Spirit and the Spiritual Dimension of Home: Jackson's charity rewarded; home as spiritual journey
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper develops a single, clear thesis — that "home" is grounded in fraternal charity — and applies it consistently across three different works, demonstrating genuine comparative literary analysis.
- The symbolic reading of the name "Mary" across Frost and Alexie is an original and memorable interpretive move, connecting two texts through a shared theological resonance.
- The contrast between characters who understand "home" (both Marys, Jackson) and those who do not (the landlord, Warren) gives the argument a coherent dialectical structure.
Key academic technique demonstrated
This paper demonstrates thematic comparative analysis: the writer identifies a single abstract concept ("home") and traces how multiple authors develop, embody, or subvert it. Rather than treating each work in isolation, the essay finds points of contact — shared character names, parallel moral situations, and echoing symbols — to build a unified argument across three distinct literary texts.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a framing quotation from Frost that defines the thesis, then uses Alexie's Jackson as an entry point into the principle of fraternal charity. It broadens outward through symbolic analysis (the Marys), then pivots to Hughes as a foil — a world where charity is absent. The final sections return to Frost's Warren and Alexie's Jackson to tie the spiritual dimension of "home" together, closing with the image of the Aleuts waiting for their ship as a summative symbol.
Introduction: Home as an Abstract Principle
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 analyzes the way these three works portray that deeper meaning.
Fraternal Charity in Alexie and Frost
Sherman Alexie's Jackson illustrates the main principle of "home" when he hands a fifth of his lottery winnings to the checkout 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 checkout girl, answers, "I'm not your family." Jackson replies, "Yes, you are," and makes her take the twenty dollars. She takes it, realizing that in a larger, communal sense, they are family. The realization puts a smile on her face.
It is this same sense that prompts Robert Frost's Silas to return to the farm of Mary and Warren in "The Death of the Hired Hand." Silas is an old, beaten-down, mostly worn-out 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 all, he is a man. Never mind the fact that his own brother judges him and puts distance between them. Never mind the fact that he has his faults, his pride which will not allow him "to beg and be beholden" (Frost 21). Warren relents slightly at his wife's characterization of Silas: does he recognize in the pathetic old man a reflection of his own inner self? If he does, the reflection is almost instantly dismissed. Warren believes home is something that must be deserved. It is his wife Mary who knows that it is something freely given.
The Symbolic Significance of Mary
Is it a coincidence that both women — in Alexie's story and in Frost's poem — are named Mary? Does it mean something that both possess the name given to the Second Eve in Christian theology, the woman who gives birth to Christ, the Savior of mankind? The implications of the name "Mary" are many and deep, and fitting in both cases as it is used in Alexie's short story and in Frost's narrative poem. In each, Mary "gets" the meaning of "family" and "home." She understands the law that binds all people together, that unites them under one roof — whether that roof is the roof of a community, a town, a single house, or the all-encompassing sky. Fraternal charity is that law. It is the law of Mary's Son in the New Testament, and it is the law that both Mary in "The Hired Hand" and Mary in "What You Pawn I Will Redeem" recognize.
"Home" means "family" and "family" means "home" — and both depend upon the law of charity. Jackson reaps the benefits of adhering to that law when the mysterious pawnbroker gives him the regalia that he cannot possibly afford (another symbol, perhaps, of the Redemption bought by Christ). Warren realizes the law only after Silas dies: he takes his wife's hand in his own and looks with her up at the sky which houses them all, and at the cloud — a representation of Silas' soul? — that joins its brethren in front of the moon. For the Jesuits, the moon is a symbol of Mary: just as the moon reflects the light of the sun, so too does Mary reflect the light of her Son.
Works Cited
Alexie, Sherman. "What You Pawn I Will Redeem." The New Yorker. 12 Apr. 2013. Web.
Frost, Robert. "The Death of the Hired Hand." Bartleby. 12 Apr. 2013. Web.
Hughes, Langston. "Ballad of the Landlord." GIS.net. 12 Apr. 2013. Web.
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