Summary of home they brought her warrior dead
Answers
Answer:
Home they Brought her Warrior Dead by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Home they Brought her Warrior Dead tells the story of a woman who lost her husband in battle. The third person narrative allows the reader to see the widow’s reaction from an outside perspective. The reader, therefore, identifies with the rest of the crowd of gathered people, and experiences the same concern for the widow and confusion at her reaction. For the first few stanzas, the widow is seen only as a woman who has lost her husband. However, the last stanza reveals that she is not only a widow but also a mother. This insight sheds light onto her reaction, allowing the readers to understand what had been going through her mind as she realized that her husband was dead and she would have to raise the child alone.
Home they Brought her Warrior Dead Analysis
Stanza 1
Home they brought her warrior dead:
She nor swooned, nor uttered cry:
All her maidens, watching, said,
‘She must weep or she will die.’
The speaker describes the reaction of a woman when her dead husband was brought back to her. Her grief is so overwhelming, she cannot even cry. She didn’t faint or swoon or make even a noise. Her friends watched her, and they became worried about her because she seemed not to grieve properly. They thought she might die if she did not weep as she should. They believed that if this woman did not grieve, the pain she refused to let out would eventually kill her.
Stanza 2
Then they praised him, soft and low,
Called him worthy to be loved,
Truest friend and noblest foe;
Yet she neither spoke nor moved.
As in many instances of death, the people around the dead man praised him. They talked about his life, about the good that he did. They “called him worthy to be loved” and they talked about the kind of friend he was to them. They called him “true” and “noble”. Yet, as the people around her grieved and spoke memories, the wife of the dead man could not speak nor move. She remained still. No one knew what was going on in her mind, but she seemed to be in a state of shock. No amount of reminiscence seemed to bring tears to the widow’s eyes. She was yet unmoved. Perhaps she was unable to accept the death, even as those around her spoke of him and paid tribute to his memory. The people around her are not sure why the woman refuses to show emotion, but they surround her with words of praise for her husband, hoping to break her out of her shock so that they might be there to comfort her.
Stanza 3
Stole a maiden from her place,
Lightly to the warrior stepped,
Took the face-cloth from the face;
Yet she neither moved nor wept.
Because the woman still refuses to grieve, one of the young women present walks up to the dead man, and removes the cloth that was covering his face. Perhaps she thought that his wife was unable to grieve because she still could not believe or accept that this dead man was her husband. The people around the widow clearly believe that the woman ought to grieve. Thus, because she will not show any signs of grief when the people speak of him, this particular friend shows her the face of her late husband, hoping that this will help the woman to break out of her state of shock and be able to grieve properly.
Stanza 4
Rose a nurse of ninety years,
Set his child upon her knee—
Like summer tempest came her tears—
‘Sweet my child, I live for thee.’
With this stanza, the speaker finally reveals to the readers the reason for the widow’s silence. She has not been unfeeling or careless of her husband’s death. She has not even been in shock or disbelief like the people around her thought. Rather, she has been paralyzed with fear. She did not think about her own pain at losing her husband. Rather, she thought of the poor child. It was not until she saw the child’s nurse sit the child “upon her knee” that she burst forth in uncontrollable tears that came “like a summer tempest”. She cried out, “Sweet my child, I live for thee”.
Answer:
This poem summary focuses on the lyrical poem ‘Home they brought her Warrior Dead’ by Alfred Lord Tennyson. This poem is made up of four stanzas, each consisting of four lines each. The whole poem is written in third person with the narrator describing a particular incident. The incident in question is a recently-widowed woman’s reaction to her husband’s death in battle.
In the first stanza, the narrator describes how the husband’s corpse was brought to his home after he had passed away while fighting in the war field. All the onlookers had expected the wife to faint at the sight of her dead husband, or to start weeping uncontrollably. However, the wife shocked everybody. She stood stock still, and she did not shed even a single tear. However, this was not a sign of strength, thought the onlookers. They believed she was in shock, and had not accepted her husband’s death as true till then. All of the widow’s women, who were surrounding her, watched her and finally they said that she must cry, or else she would perish. They said this because they believed that all the pain that the widow was keeping pent up inside her would eventually have an adverse effect on her health, and that she would not survive from the misery inflicted on her by her husband’s death.
In the second stanza, the narrator describes how the maidens who had come to visit the widow tried in various ways to make her aware of the loss she had been through so as to evoke an emotional reaction from her. They spoke in gentle tones while praising her dead husband, and said that he had deserved all the love she had given him. They did this to remind her of the deep relation between husband and wife that she seems to have ignored in her shock. Perhaps reminding her of how close she had been to her now-gone husband would bring tears to her eyes, and these tears would ease her pain and relieve her mind of the pressure to hide her emotions in front of the crowd of onlookers. The maidens also said that had been the “truest friend” and the “noblest foe” they had ever seen. Such praise of the husband, not just from the wife’s point of view, but from society’s point of view, was aimed at reminding the widow of the nobility and dignity her husband commanded from the world at large. That his loss was a loss to all who knew him might be a greater realization for the wife, reasoned the maidens. However, none of their words seemed to have any effect on the wife. She still stood motionless and silent.
In the third stanza, the narrator describes how one particular maiden made a concentrated effort from her own side to make the widow cry, and thus express her grief. This maiden walked up slowly and quietly to the corpse, and removed the face-cloth that covers the faces of dead bodies from the face of the woman’s husband. Perhaps seeing her husband’s countenance would prove to be too difficult an experience for the widow, and she would at last dissolve in uncontrollable tears. However, once again, the widow surprised every onlooker. She refused to move, or to shed a tear.
In the fourth stanza, the apparent mystery of the widow’s motionlessness and silence is solved. The narrator describes how an old nurse of ninety years’ age placed the widow’s child on her knee, and then, to everyone’s relief, the widow’s tears came down with the force of a storm like the ones that occur in summer months. In addition to this, the widow uttered her first words since seeing her husband’s corpse, and told her child that she would go on with her life for the child’s sake. Thus it is apparent that all the while the widow had been thinking of her child who would have to live life without a father. This concern of the widow’s had kept her paralyzed and speechless in worry. But in the end, she resolved that she would care for her child in every way and never let the child feel abandoned or unloved.