Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Out interpretation robert frost essay
A brief essay on war poetry
Out interpretation robert frost essay
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Out interpretation robert frost essay
In “Out, Out-”, Robert Frost utilizes symbolism to compare the death of a forcibly matured child to that of a drafted soldier. Throughout the poem, he uses personification, and symbolism to achieve this. The personification of the saw personifies a barking, hostile dog, that, because of his upbringing the child trusts. The symbolism is present throughout the poem, as to reinforce the idea of the hostility of war. The child’s superior figure, which is thought to be his father, symbolizes the oblivious officials that send and opt to draft soldiers into the war. The last line represents the apathy that soldiers are forced upon as their friends and fellow peers die. “Out, Out-” by Robert Frost is meant to question the ethics of wartime by paralleling …show more content…
The same goes for the officials that promote wartime propaganda. Instead of explaining what would be witnessed in war, they glorified it, instilling a sense of nationalistic virtue in recruits. The recruits, instead of pride and nationalism, returned mentally disturbed. Most did not return. In the same way, the boy held an honorable image in his mind, one where was working to support his family. He was not, however, prepared for the causality that was inflicted upon him. The speaker presents the boys horrors, fully realizing the dangerous position he is in, “He saw all spoiled. ‘Don’t let him cut my hand off - / The doctor, when he comes. Don’t let him, sister!’” (25-26) Michael R. Little explains in his analysis of “Out, Out-”,
“The tragedy of the poem is only in part that the boy dies; another aspect of the poem's tragedy is that the boy dies without ever having been allowed to live a boy's life; he dies doing grown-up
…show more content…
And they, since they / Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.”(33-34) After the boy had taken his last breath, his family continued on with work. They knew that production would slow and output would suffer if they delayed. So, they pressed on, despite what they felt. The higher officers and platoon leaders during war enforced the same mindset on inexperienced recruits. They were aware that stopping on a battlefield would put the war effort at risk at large. This forced lack of concern created a feeling of guilt in the survivors, because they were essentially forced into apathy for the dead. Again because of the glorification of war, many new recruits were not prepared for this and suffered grave mental scars that would last most if not all of their
When Paul was in the war he and his Friend Kat ran into a recruit that had been shot and they were debating whether or not to put him out of his misery. "We'll be back again soon," says Kat, "We are only going to get a stretcher for you."We don't know if he understands. He whimpers like a child and plucks at us: "Don't go away--” Kat looks around and whispers: "Shouldn't we just take a revolver and put an end to it?" (Page 34). In the movie Gallipoli, the main character Archy was a runner and he had no idea what he had gotten himself into. But when it was his time to cross the front line he had hesitation and did what he had signed up for. In the poem In Flanders Field it makes you feel sad for all the lives that had been lost. “Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields.” this gives you a feeling of sadness for all the people who died and their families that they will never see
In the book “The Things They Carried”, O’Brien uses imagery, figurative language and repetition to convey his message. O’Brien’s purpose for story telling, is to clear his conscience of war and to tell the stories of soldiers who were forgotten by society. Many young men were sent to war, despite opposing it. They believed it was “wrong” to be sent to their deaths. Sadly, no one realizes a person’s significance until they die. Only remembering how they lived rather than acknowledging their existence when they were alive.
The war had a lot of emotional toll on people it destroyed their personal identity, their moral/humanity, the passion to live was lost and the PDS they will suffer post war, resulting in the soldiers to understand what war is really about and what is covered up. There are scenes that support the thesis about the war like "As for the rest, they are now just names without faces or faces without names." Chapter 2, p. 27 which show how the soldiers have emotional detached themselves from life. Also, when the novel says “I saw their living mouths moving in conversation and their dead mouths grinning the taut-drawn grins of corpses. Their living eyes I saw, and their dead eyes still-staring. Had it not been for the fear that I was going crazy, I would have found it an interesting experience, a trip such as no drug could possibly produce. Asleep and dreaming, I saw dead men living; awake, I saw living men dead.” Which to me again shows how the soldiers are change throughout the war losing the moral and humanity. Lastly what he says “ I’m not scared of death anymore and don 't care whether I live of die” is the point where I notice Phillips change in
The violent nature that the soldiers acquired during their tour in Vietnam is one of O'Brien's predominant themes in his novel. By consciously selecting very descriptive details that reveal the drastic change in manner within the men, O'Brien creates within the reader an understanding of the effects of war on its participants. One of the soldiers, "Norman Bowler, otherwise a very gentle person, carried a Thumb. . .The Thumb was dark brown, rubbery to touch. . . It had been cut from a VC corpse, a boy of fifteen or sixteen"(O'Brien 13). Bowler had been a very good-natured person in civilian life, yet war makes him into a very hard-mannered, emotionally devoid soldier, carrying about a severed finger as a trophy, proud of his kill. The transformation shown through Bowler is an excellent indicator of the psychological and emotional change that most of the soldiers undergo. To bring an innocent young man from sensitive to apathetic, from caring to hateful, requires a great force; the war provides this force. However, frequently are the changes more drastic. A soldier named "Ted Lavender adopted an orphaned puppy. . .Azar strapped it to a Claymore antipersonnel mine and squeezed the firing device"(O'Brien 39). Azar has become demented; to kill a puppy that someone else has adopted is horrible. However, the infliction of violence has become the norm of behavior for these men; the fleeting moment of compassion shown by one man is instantly erased by another, setting order back within the group. O'Brien here shows a hint of sensitivity among the men to set up a startling contrast between the past and the present for these men. The effect produced on the reader by this contrast is one of horror; therefore fulfilling O'Brien's purpose, to convince the reader of war's severely negative effects.
The brass reasoned that an experienced infantryman is a terrified infantryman. The odds of dying in the early waves were so great that an informed soldier might be paralyzed with well-founded despair. But the young and idealistic might move forward into the lottery of death.
...n amnesiac nation into “working through” its troubled past.” (Bly ,189) Story telling was the soldier’s salvation, their survival method. Being able to tell their stories let them express everything they were feeling and ultimately cope with the horrors of war and the guilt the carried.
Since these soldier are of such a young age the emotions and burdens are highly intensified. The men that were drafted for Vietnam were in their late teens to early twenties. They had absolutely no concept of killing. These young men were students or boyfriends, they had no idea how to handle the loss of a fellow soldier who they have forged a friendship with. The author Tim O'Brien uses details to point out what the experience was like for these young men. To illustrate the fear and cowardice that none of them could admit to. This is something that all of the soldiers had to deal with. Even though they were scared to go out and fight they did so anyway because, it was hard for these men to face the burden of emotion. When Ted Lavender died his fellow soldiers were indeed sad for his loss but, every single one of them was happy that it wasn't them who was dead. They can still live one more day deal...
There is a major change in the men in this novel. At first, they are excited to join the army in order to help their country. After they see the truth about war, they learn very important assets of life such as death, destruction, and suffering. These emotions are learned in places like training camp, battles, and hospitals. All the men, dead or alive, obtained knowledge on how to deal with death, which is very important to one’s life.
As minds become unstable, common sense begins to float away and seperate from the being itself. Judgement is thrown out the window and all that is left in the room guilt- a feeling that clouts the mind. Jimmy Cross- lieutenant of O’Brien’s 44th infantry division- while distracted by the loss of his men, would take a decision that would only worsen his already polluted conscious. Being too focused on the men he had previously lost, he had forgotten to take care of the men that were still living and breathing under his command. He decided to set up camp in an unlikely spot, which he would eventually reveal he knew was unfit and an easy target for the enemy; leading to his regiment getting bombarded and further regret. “ When a man died, there had to be blame. Jimmy Cross understood this. You could blame the war… A moment of carelessness or bad judgement or plain stupidity carried consequences that lasted forever.”( In the Field 143). Events could tragically hurt your mindset not only after the war, but during it. Leaving one to be left with guilt, as well as the responsibility of others’ death. War completely overshadows one’s judgement and could simply add on to its already heavy load on that person. Guilt is a powerful emotion that can completely consume one’s state of mind and lead to the multiplication of it; adding another burden to the hardships of battle. War is a defective event, and can clout a person’s judgement and decision
Robert Frost’s poem “Out, out” is set in Vermont during the late afternoon and is about a young boy who is cutting wood for the family stove and gets his hand cut off ultimately resulting in death. Frost uses this poem as a way to show that life has little sympathy for the dead. He does this by using many literary techniques such as imagery, personification, allusion, and blank verse. All of these techniques are important when understanding this poem because it helps to convey certain feeling and emotions from Frost’s perspective. The theme, symbols, and literary techniques Frost uses are essential in coming to terms with how to portray this poem.
The poem starts with the end of the boy's life as his body is disposed
Poetry is a creative art form that allows a critical thinking connection between the creator and the audience of each poem. The reader must think critically and in depth about the subject matter and meaning of what each poet is presenting with their body of work. On the other hand, the poet must be able to present their body of work with a unique writing style that encodes a deeper message than what appears on the surface. Most would say that poetry is read for its witty internal messages, but the reader must be able to accurately decipher the message the poet is presenting to fully understand the poet’s allusions. I believe that all poetry is inspired by memorable life events that have been experienced by an individual whether good or bad. If this is true, then much of the subject matter and meaning of poetry can be deciphered by identifying the key elements in each poem such as tones, moods, similes, metaphors, writing styles, and most importantly knowing the facts of the creator’s personal life experiences. In this essay, I will use the identifying techniques listed above to decipher the poem, “Out, Out-” by Robert Frost, to determine if Mr. Frost’s personal experiences with
feelings of the soldiers as they were confused as to what to do in the
Robert Frost captures one’s attention with the opening line “The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard” (Frost, line 1). The sound of a buzz-saw snarling and rattling as it cuts through wood is a sound that everybody knows and can imagine the sound in their head. The opening line is dramatic, as the reader knows the dangers of a chainsaw. The title “Out, Out” is actually a quote from Shakespeare’s Macbeth when Macbeth receives news that his wife is dead; “Out, out, brief candle!” (Macbeth V, v, 23) signifies her death. The poem has a title about death, and the poem starts off by describing the sinister sounds that a buzz-saw makes. Frost uses a word that makes the buzz-saw seem angry or evil, as snarling means an angry growl. This buzz-saw is not nice sounding, it has an angry growl foreshadowing wh...
There are several death related motifs present in the poem. For instance, the poem opens with a passage from Dante’s Inferno, foreshadowing the theme of death in the poem. The speaker says “I know the voices dying with a dying fall.” He also references Lazarus from the Bible, who was raised from the dead, further developing the death motif. The speaker also seems to be looking back on life, referring to past experiences and his aging, as if he believes his death is imminent. He seems to have an obsession with hiding his age. According to the Psychoanalytic Criticism Chapter, the greater our fear of something is, the greater our obsession becomes (24). The speaker's fear of death has lead him to wear clothes that are fashionable for young people, such as rolling his trousers, and goes to great lengths to cover his age in other ways, such as parting his hair behind to cover a bald spot. The last stanza of the poem has a rather depressing and sad ending, a result of fear of