The Death of the Hired Man

“The Death of the Hired Man” is a narrative poem or eclogue, a pastoral poem written in dialogue form. Like other pastoral poems, it has a rural setting, and the characters are concerned with aspects of their rural life, i.e., whether to take in a former farm hand who has proven unreliable but now approaches death. The poem positions two characters who have a discussion at the end of which a third character, in the poem only through references by the other two, dies without explanation. There is little action in the narrative present—Mary intercepts Warren before he goes into the kitchen, tells him about the return of Silas, and then the two debate what to do with the old man. Warren is reluctant to give Silas another chance or to take him in; Mary wants to help the dying man. Then the high point of the narrative is an interior moment, an epiphany: Warren changes his mind, a tipping point moment that proves, ironically, too late to matter.

The poem itself is broken into irregular stanzas that reflect the back and forth of the couple’s conversation. Although the poem has been performed as a one-act play, the poem as is can be a challenge as the stanzas shift from Mary to Warren with little authorial intrusion or those convenient name identifiers associated with drama transcripts. Frost’s original concept can be appreciated by listening to Frost himself read the poem (available on YouTube) moving from Mary to Warren without changing tone or delivery.