Communication between the opposite sexes. This is what I see as the biggest similarity or connection between the poem Home Burial by Robert Frost, and the article Sex, Lies and Conversation by Deborah Tannen. The article was more of a study on how males and females communicate with one another. The poem was basically doing the same, yet in a story or example like form. .
One connection I saw between the poem and the article was when the husband was trying to explain his point of view to his wife on the burial of their child. He was telling her how where he buried his child was where his people were. Instead of the wife listening and trying to understand, she took offense to it. Just like in the article on the last page, eighteenth line down. It says, "But many men see their conversational duty as pointing out another point of view. This is heard as disloyalty by women." .
Another connection I made was the switching of the topics during a conversation. In the poem, while Amy (the wife) was trying to explain her misery towards the child's death, the husband began talking about the fence that needed fixing. This to was explained in the article. On the second page under "Listening to Body Language", it says "Switching topics is another habit that gives women the impression men aren't listening, especially if they switch to a topic about themselves." This is exactly what the husband did. He changed the topic to himself on how the weather rotted his fence that he built.
