She, in her place, refused him any help
With the least stiffening of her neck and silence.
She let him look, sure that he wouldn’t see,
Blind creature . . .
The gentleman character in this dialogue expresses a passionate desire to understand the struggles that his wife is facing. He has heard the silent torture pouring out from her body like the squeal of a small animal trapped and overcome by pain. He has seen the torment in her eyes as she stares out of the small, thick pained square window at the staircase’s crest of the cold country farmhouse. He has noticed how she can’t keep her eyes from fixing on the hill in the distance near their property line, and he is deeply intrigued by a welling compassion to know what has planted such a terrified look in his beloved’s eyes. He intently asks and then commands her to tell him what it is that she has been looking at. Instead of recognizing his deep concern for her, though, Amy denies his request and avoids even eye contact. She feels as though she cannot share her frustration with him on any intimate level because she can barely even stand his presence anymore. She almost despises him and thinks him to be too insensitive and dumb to grasp and identify the pain that she is experiencing. By not openly confessing her pain to him, she builds a wall between the both of them; her pride is keeping him from being able to connect with her on the personal level that he desires.
Amy is afraid of death and does not understand how to cope with or let go of the feelings that she is experiencing. Her husband (whose name we have not yet been told) is frustrated that Amy cannot rely on the love they have between them to lift her above her pain and fear; he thinks that she has drawn out this grieving period considerably too long and believes her to be over-reacting (like she often does). He says to her,
“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.
You’d think his memory might be satisfied—“
Amy, highly frustrated at this accusation, believes his confession to be unjustly pointing fingers at her self-perceived right to hold on to her grief, and (for a moment) she almost breaks down, professing,
“You can’t because you don’t know how to speak.
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, . . .
I thought, who is that man? I didn’t know you.”
Amy goes on to describe a moment she witnessed the day that her child was buried that has unsettled her so much. She confesses how she had spied on her husband, after he had come in from digging the hole that their baby would lie in. And she shares the terrible experiences that have left her so disturbed:
“You could sit there with the stains on your shoes
Of the fresh earth from your baby’s grave
And talk about your everyday concerns.”
“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?”
Amy, more than slightly confused by the “strength” of her husband to not openly and explicitly grieve at the death of their very young son, can no longer see her partner as a stronghold. He is a creature, a monster, and she is not sure how it is that she can live with him. She abhors his very sight and is quite possibly sickened by his presence. This, we can assume, is the driving force that sends her fleeing out of the house and catapults her into the arms of her family. Amy cannot relate to her husband because she cannot understand her husband. Partly due to her fear of death, Amy cannot fathom how quickly he has removed himself from his grief, and the only explanation that her mind can offer is a portrait painted of this man that hurls him into the category of an un-feeling sub-human.
Sadly enough, our young couple never does work through their situation. There is no happy ending to appease our romantic ideals (and rightly so) of new love. Amy walks out on her husband, unmoved by his efforts to control her by command, and ends all further communication with the loud slamming of a heavy door (which is, ironically enough, communication in itself). The argument between this couple is left open ended, because Frost knows himself that there is never a quick fix to adversity in love. The trials that our young couple is facing are only the beginning of their long journey into a hopeful old age together. They will be torn apart by such arguments again and again as they learn to love and live with each other. And if they persevere, refusing to throw in the towel, they will in the end be fused together by a bond that is almost impossible to break. Marriage is a gift and a trial consecrated by God; a husband and a wife must learn to sometimes wade in the mud before they can journey up their mountain.