"Out, Out—" is a 1916 single stanza poem authored by American poet

Robert Frost Robert Lee Frost (March26, 1874January29, 1963) was an American poet. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American Colloquialism, colloquial speech, Frost frequently wrote about settings from rural life in New E ...

, relating the accidental death of a young man, with references to

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

's ''

Macbeth ''The Tragedy of Macbeth'', often shortened to ''Macbeth'' (), is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, estimated to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatises the physically violent and damaging psychological effects of political ambiti ...

''.

Background

The poem was written in memory of 16-year-old Raymond Tracy Fitzgerald, whom Frost had befriended while living in

Franconia, New Hampshire Franconia is a town in Grafton County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 1,083 at the 2020 census. Set in the White Mountains, Franconia is home to the northern half of Franconia Notch State Park. Parts of the White Mountain Nat ...

. Fitzgerald had died on March 24, 1910, after an accident similar to the accident related in "Out, Out—". The poem was first published in the July 1916 issue of ''McClure's'' before being included in the collection '' Mountain Interval''.

Text

The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard And 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 count Five mountain ranges one behind the other Under 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 said To please the boy by giving him the half hour That a boy counts so much when saved from work. His sister stood beside him in her apron To 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 leap— He 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 hand Half in appeal, but half as if to keep The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all— Since he was old enough to know, big boy Doing a man’s work, though a child at heart— He saw all spoiled. ‘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 then—the watcher at his pulse took fright. No one believed. They listened at his heart. Little—less—nothing!—and that ended it. No more to build on there. And they, since they Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.

Analysis

"Out Out—" tells the story of a young boy who dies after his hand is severed by a " buzz-saw". The poem focuses on people's reactions to death, as well as the death itself, one of the main ideas being that life goes on. The boy lost his hand to a buzzsaw and bled so much that he went into shock, dying in spite of his doctor's efforts. Frost uses personification to great effect throughout the poem. The buzz saw, although technically an inanimate object, is described as a cognizant being—"snarling" and "rattling" repeatedly, as well as "leaping" out at the boy's hand in excitement. Frost concentrates on the apparent innocence and passivity of the boy—which is relevant to the time period—as Frost was forced to move back to America due to war in Britain just a year before the poem was written. Bearing this in mind, the poem can be read as a critique as to how warfare can force innocent, young boys to leave their childhood behind, and ultimately be destroyed by circumstances created by the "responsible" adult. The title of the poem is an allusion to

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

's tragedy ''

'' ("Out, out, brief candle ..." in the "

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" is the beginning of the second sentence of a soliloquy in William Shakespeare's tragedy ''Macbeth''. It takes place in the beginning of the fifth scene of Act 5, during the time when the Scottish troops, led b ...

" soliloquy).

is shocked to hear of his wife's death and comments on the brevity of life; it refers to how unpredictable and fragile life is. The poem uses figurative language including

onomatopoeia Onomatopoeia (or rarely echoism) is a type of word, or the process of creating a word, that phonetics, phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Common onomatopoeias in English include animal noises such as Oin ...

alliteration Alliteration is the repetition of syllable-initial consonant sounds between nearby words, or of syllable-initial vowels if the syllables in question do not start with a consonant. It is often used as a literary device. A common example is " Pe ...

imagery Imagery is visual symbolism, or figurative language that evokes a mental image or other kinds of sense impressions, especially in a literary work, but also in other activities such as. Imagery in literature can also be instrumental in conveying ...

, and many others.

Harold Bloom Harold Bloom (July 11, 1930 – October 14, 2019) was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was called "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking world". Af ...

noted that it is "one of Frost's most respected poems, but it has not received the same depth of critical attention and explication as poems such as ' The Road Not Taken' and '

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is a poem by Robert Frost, written in 1922, and published in 1923 in his ''New Hampshire'' volume. Imagery, personification, and repetition are prominent in the work. In a letter to Louis Untermeyer ...

.'"Little, Michael R.; Bloom, Harold. ''Bloom's How to Write about Robert Frost''. Infobase Publishing, 2009: 161. .

References

Sources

*Nancy Lewis Tuten; John Zubizarreta (2001). ''The Robert Frost Encyclopedia''. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-29464-8. *Jay Parini (2000). ''Robert Frost: A Life''. Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-8050-6341-7. *Jeffrey Meyers (1996). ''Robert Frost: a biography''. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 9780395856031. {{DEFAULTSORT:Out, Out 1916 poems American poems Poems in English Modernist poems Poetry by Robert Frost Public domain poems Poems about death Works originally published in McClure's