Robert Frost and the Ethics of Emotional Withholding: Moral Silence, Withheld Speech, and Incomplete Disclosure in Frost’s Poetry

Sabnam; Dr. Binay Shanker Roy

Robert Frost and the Ethics of Emotional Withholding: Moral Silence, Withheld Speech, and Incomplete Disclosure in Frost’s Poetry

Author(s)	Sabnam, Dr. Binay Shanker Roy
Country	India
Abstract	Critical discussions of Robert Frost’s poetry have frequently emphasized themes of isolation, miscommunication, and emotional distance, often interpreting silence as a symptom of psychological trauma or social failure. This paper proposes a different critical framework by examining silence in Frost’s poetry as an ethical act rather than a mere absence of speech. Focusing on poems such as Home Burial, The Hill Wife, An Old Man’s Winter Night, and Acquainted with the Night, the study argues that Frost repeatedly presents emotional withholding as a deliberate moral choice shaped by responsibility, restraint, and the limits of articulation. In these poems, characters are not incapable of speech; instead, they resist disclosure even when speech is possible. Such resistance creates ethical tension, redistributing emotional burden and redefining accountability within personal relationships and solitary existence. Drawing on close textual analysis informed by ethical and affective perspectives, the paper demonstrates how Frost’s poetics of incomplete disclosure challenge modern assumptions that emotional expression is inherently virtuous. Silence, in Frost’s work, functions as a form of agency that can protect dignity, preserve autonomy, or inflict harm, depending on its context. By reframing silence as moral strategy rather than communicative failure, this study offers a sustained interpretive model that extends existing Frost scholarship and reconsiders the ethical dimensions of speech, restraint, and emotional responsibility in lyric and dramatic poetry.
Keywords	Ethical silence, Emotional withholding, Moral agency in poetry, Affective responsibility, Robert Frost
Field	Sociology > Linguistic / Literature
Published In	Volume 16, Issue 2, July-December 2025
Published On	2025-08-29
Cite This	Robert Frost and the Ethics of Emotional Withholding: Moral Silence, Withheld Speech, and Incomplete Disclosure in Frost’s Poetry - Sabnam, Dr. Binay Shanker Roy - IJAIDR Volume 16, Issue 2, July-December 2025.

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Robert Frost and the Ethics of Emotional Withholding: Moral Silence, Withheld Speech, and Incomplete Disclosure in Frost’s Poetry

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