From the poem "Roger Heston" Roger is attacked by a cow that bites apart the rope which holds it back which attacks Roger and kills him. Ernest got his final word to Roger as he was running as shown in the following lines from "Roger Henson.".
"She ran for us.
"What's that, free-will or what?" said Ernest, running,.
I fell just as she gored me to my death." (Masters, 199).
Even though this poem has a disturbing ending, it is straight forward and to the point. Roger Heston mentions in the poem "Oh, many times did Ernest Hyde and I Argue about the freedom of the will." Obviously Roger for his final word in before Ernest died. Whether this person was real or not I believe Masters does not believe in free will because if he did then he would not have included a poem like this or a poem that ends in a death with such a strong comment during the death of Roger.
To prove Ernest Hyde didn't believe in free will he says a few strong words in his self-titled poem, "Ernest Hyde." He brings up a few major points about his view about the world and how it does not consist about free will at all. Even though he only says a few sentences, you can interpret that he is very strange yet very philosophical in a way. One philosophy he stats in "Ernest Hyde" which seems very true are in the next few lines from the poem.
"A mirror scratched reflects no image -.
And this is the silence of wisdom."(Masters, 198).
In a way Masters expresses Realism, or a way of expressing actual life. In this case, Masters shows that as things get older they begin to lose their function. In this poem Masters shows that the mirror, over time, gets scratched and slowly loses its function to reflect; this defies free will because the mirror has no choice but to get old. The mirror can be compared to the human mind or even the human body. Over time, the mind begins to lose its function, to think and function the body, just like the mirror but the human mind controls a person unlike the mirror.