Out, Out Analysis

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 them in her apron
To tell them "Supper." At that 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.

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This poem represents good personification and good use of a triambic pentameter. Frost has helped picture the sense of death amongst young people doing so called "men's work".

| Posted on 2009-04-27 | by a guest

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this poem is about how death, forced social roles and helplessness in the form of fate. baiscly a saw cut of the boys hand and he died in a hopital of lack of blood. he uses many metaphors and personification in this poem. snarled and rattle are personifictaion as well as leaped out of the boys hand. saws dont leap. From line 8 he hints the sign of death through the word sunset. Sunset represents death. the social role of a man was forced upon a young boy who was to imature to have the control of a buzz saw for he was a young boy doing a mans work.

| Posted on 2008-09-28 | by a guest