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Depending on who is being asked the word home can have many different meanings. A house is a wood framed building with bedrooms, furniture, and a kitchen, A house is not always a home though, to be home you need to feel safe and loved where you are. Even though there are so many meanings to the word home they all have one this in common, a place you can feel welcome where you are and not anyone judging you for your past or present. Two readings that show their house in not a home is in Robinson’s Home and Hardy’s “The Ruined Maid.”

In Robinson’s Home two of retired minister Robert Boughton’s children came “home” after they both had some tragedy. Both never truly felt at home when they returned. Jack always tried convincing his father that he is not doing anything illegal, while Glory is busy taking care of her father and not living her dream of teaching.

When Jack came home Glory and him acted like complete strangers, they did not act like siblings that missed each other and cared for one another. After some time Jack and Glory started letting each other knows bit and pieces of their passed after they left home. Jack knows everyone in town does not want him there, they remember the past him and not who he is now. Towards to end of the book Jack mentions that the women he is in love with is a African American women, his father was angered at him after that and told him he would never be okay with his son loving an African American woman. This is not a home when your own family does not want you to be around. A home is somewhere you can go to feel loved and Jack does not feel loved in the house. Jack struggled throughout the book with wanting forgiveness and never feeling like he recieved it. His father mentioned multiple times about Jack leaving, or if Jack had run off yet. He never had and by his father asking these questions to Glory made him feel as though his father didn’t trust he would stick around and didn’t want him there.

Glory came back to take care of her father who is on death row. She left her job and the guy she was in love with to be back in her childhood house. The man she was in love with and thought loved her back ended up embarrassing her by already being married to another women. Glory had felt like she was home when with him, but now no longer has a home. Glory feels lost at where she is currently in her life. She loves her father and wants him to be comfortable, but she knows the small town of Gilead is not her home and where she wants to spend the rest of her life. Glory was always more reserved than the other siblings and even now being back home with only her father and Jack she continues to be reserved and gives Jack more privacy than he should have. The Boughtons all hold secrets and feelings about themselves and don’t tell their family. A home is where you can freely tell others how you are feeling and don’t feel the need to hide anything from the others in your home.

In Hardy’s “The Ruined Maid” the woman came back and ran into an old friend. Since the woman had lost her purity or virginity before marriage she was considered ruined and nobody wanted her, so she became a prostitute (Shmoop). She has nowhere to call home, she does not have a family any longer, and she cannot go to anyone when feeling hurt, the town she grew up in she no longer feels at home. She has no husband or friends. Although she is now in new clothing and looks fancier, she has no family like the other woman who is working on the farm in ragged clothing. The other woman seems jealous of ‘Melia’s looks, but ‘Melia knows that the farming woman does not want what she has. ‘Melia states this at the end of each stanza by saying she has been ruined such as these two stanzas. "O didn't you know I'd been ruined?" said she (Hardy, line 4). Or "We never do work when we're ruined," said she (Hardy, line 16). The farming woman is poor, dirty, and tired but respectable, while ‘Melia is rich, well dressed, and clean yet not respected in the community. Wealth means that you are an important person, but in ‘Melia’s wealth there is no one thinking she is important.

The novel and the poem are in different eras and completely different settings, but they both have the definition of home in common. One when they returned to their childhood home with their father happy to see them, although they are as happy to be there. Glory and Jack returned to their father’s house for different reasons and neither feel Gilead is where home is, they both are trying to figure themselves out and where home is for each of them. The other when she bumps into an old friend and is not welcome to go back home. While home may have many different meanings, there is always a common theme of feeling welcome where you are and not anyone judging you for your past or present.

Works Cited

Finch, Annie. "The Ruined Maid." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.

Robinson, Marilynne. Home. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008. Print.

Shmoop Editorial Team. “The Ruined Maid Setting.” Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11

Nov. 2008. Web. 30 March 2016.

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