By Robert Frost

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Out, Out!

• By Robert Frost

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Form

• This 39-line poem consists of one verse. In this
  poem rhythm matches meaning.
• The poem is a narrative. It is an account of a
  single event, a boys death in a farmyard
  accident.
• This poem is a story told by a narrator using
  past tense. It is almost entirely 3rd-person
  narrative. The one use of 1st-person (I) in the
  poem, in line 10, stands out and emphasises the
  narrators wish that the accident had never
  happened.

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The Poem and its meaning

• Out Out is set in the countryside at sunset.
  The reference to stove-length may suggest that
  the season is chilly enough to require stoves to
  be lit.
• Frost describes the scene of a buzz-saw accident
  on a farm. While writing about a physical event,
  Frost also describes the suddenness of death.
• Frost compares the buzz-saw to a wild beast. He
  portrays it as a predator or killer of a young
  life. He also shows that life can end
  brutally.Frost also considers the way others
  just get on with their life after a death.
• On one level, Out Out recreates a tragic
  accident in a country location.The poem also
  describes the consequences of forcing a boy to do
  mans work.It also explores the practical and
  hardheaded attitude of poor farmers towards
  survival.
• On a deeper level, Out Out portrays how some
  people treat human life as insignificant.

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The Allusion of the Title

• Macbethsays, on learning of the death of Lady
  Macbeth, his wifeShe should have died
  hereafter There would have been a time for such
  a word.To-morrow, and to-morrow, and
  to-morrow,Creeps in this petty pace from day to
  day,To the last syllable of recorded time And
  all our yesterdays have lighted foolsThe way to
  dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but
  a walking shadow, a poor player,That struts and
  frets his hour upon the stage,And then is heard
  no more. It is a taleTold by an idiot, full of
  sound and fury,Signifying nothing.

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Opening Images of Sight, Sound and Smell
The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yardAnd
made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of
wood,Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew
across it.And from there those that lifted eyes
could countFive mountain ranges one behind the
otherUnder the sunset far into Vermont.And the
saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,As
it ran light, or had to bear a load.And nothing
happened day was all but done.Call it a day, I
wish they might have saidTo please the boy by
giving him the half hourThat a boy counts so
much when saved from work.
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The Parody and the Irony

• The reference to the boy looking to the hills
  echoes one of Frosts favourite themes the
  non-Utopic view of Nature the boy admires the
  hills, is distracted and the parody of the Psalm
  I will lift mine eyes unto the hills, from
  whence cometh my help - In Frosts depiction of
  Nature here, no help will come from the hills or
  from the great beyond.
• The theme of transition to manhood is another of
  Frosts themes he is a boy doing a mans work

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Irony, Metonymy, Punctuation

• His sister stood beside them in her apronTo tell
  them "Supper." At the word, the saw,As if to
  prove saws knew what supper meant,Leaped out at
  the boy's hand, or seemed to leapHe must have
  given the hand. However it was,Neither refused
  the meeting. But the hand!The boy's first outcry
  was a rueful laugh,As he swung toward them
  holding up the handHalf in appeal, but half as
  if to keepThe life from spilling. Then the boy
  saw allSince he was old enough to know, big
  boyDoing a man's work, though a child at
  heartHe saw all spoiled.

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Fade to Grey and Understatement

• "Don't let him cut my hand
  off
• The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him,
  sister!"So. But the hand was gone already.The
  doctor put him in the dark of ether.He lay and
  puffed his lips out with his breath.And thenthe
  watcher at his pulse took fright.No one
  believed. They listened at his heart.Littleless
  nothing!and that ended it.No more to build on
  there. And they, since theyWere not the one
  dead, turned to their affairs.

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The Themes

• The brevity of life makes man's struggles and
  aspirations meaningless.
• Nature is not Utopia
• There is a Transition from Boyhood to Manhood,
  which can be a difficult one

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