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 theme in the poem “Out, out” is “Life’s but a walking shadow” (Frost 1402) meaning that life
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The first technique he uses is imagery. Frost does this at the beginning of the poem by talking about all of the beauty of nature that is around the boy. For example, he talks about the mountains in the distance that the boy does not see because he is too busy working. Another example and the most important use of imagery in this poem is the snarling and rattling of the saw. This is essential because it gives the readers a since of life to the saw. Lastly, the sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it gives the reader not only smell but also touch. All of these examples of imagery helps set the mood for the reader and puts them into the poem as an onlooker. Another technique that he uses is figurative language. The saw “snarled and rattled” is the use of figurative language and onomatopoeia because it represents the fate of the boy and the animal-like noise that accompanies the fate. Also, “Call it a day” is figurative language because this represents that if the boy was told to stop working earlier he might have never lost his and hand and would not have died. Frost also uses figurative language when he wrote “The life from spilling” meaning that literally the blood is gushing from his arm and so his life is quickly fading away because the more blood loss the faster arrival of death will come. Irony can also be found in “Out, out” when the boy laughs after his hand is cut off by the saw. This ironic because usually people do not laugh at these types of situations and have the complete opposite reaction which is usually panic. Frost also uses blank verse and no stanzas to convey emotion throughout the poem. He does this by showing the light heartedness of the setting at the beginning of the poem and is invested in the boy, but then as the poem continues he detaches himself from the emotional aspect of the situation the boy is in. For example, when is says, “Call it a day , I
Instructor Mendoza English 1B 22 July 2015. Robert Frost: Annotated Bibliography. Research Question: What are the common themes in Robert Frost's work? Robert Frost is a very successful poet from the 20th century, as well as a four time Pulitzer Prize winner.
An unknown author once wrote “Never take life too seriously; after all, no one gets out of it alive”. When reading this quote, there can almost be an immediate connection between two very good works of writing: Macbeth’s “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” speech from Shakespeare’s tragedy, Macbeth, and the poem “Out, Out --” by Robert Frost. Both allude to the idea that a single life, in its totality, denotes nothing, and eventually, everyone’s candle of life is blown out. However, each poet approaches this idea from opposite perspectives. Frost writes of a young, innocent boy whose life ends suddenly and unexpectedly. His poem is dry and lacks emotion from anyone except the young boy. Whereas the demise of Shakespeare’s character, Macbeth, an evil man, has been anticipated throughout the entire play. Through these writings, we are able gather a little more insight as to how these poets perhaps felt about dying and life itself.
Frost is far more than the simple agrarian writer some claim him to be. He is deceptively simple at first glance, writing poetry that is easy to understand on an immediate, superficial level. Closer examination of his texts, however, reveal his thoughts on deeply troubling psychological states of living in a modern world. As bombs exploded and bodies piled up in the World Wars, people were forced to consider not only death, but the aspects of human nature that could allow such atrocities to occur. By using natural themes and images to present modernist concerns, Frost creates poetry that both soothes his readers and asks them to consider the true nature of the world and themselves.
Frost’s sentence structure is long and complicated. Many meanings of his poems are not revealed to the reader through first glance, but only after close introspection of the poem. The true meanings contained in Frost’s poems, are usually lessons on life. Frost uses symbolism of nature and incorporates that symbolism into everyday life situations. The speaker in the poems vary, in the poem “The Pasture”, Frost seems to be directly involved in the poem, where as in the poem “While in the Rose Pogonias”, he is a detached observer, viewing and talking about the world’s beauty. Subsequently, the author transfers that beauty over to the beauty of experiences that are achieved through everyday life.
Frost uses a religious allusion to further enforce the objective of the poem. Whether Frost's argument is proven in a religious or scientific forum, it is nonetheless true. In directly citing these natural occurrences from inanimate, organic things such as plants, he also indirectly addresses the phenomena of aging in humans, in both physical and spiritual respects. Literally, this is a poem describing the seasons. Frosts interpretation of the seasons is original in the fact that it is not only autumn that causes him grief, but summer.
Frost uses different stylistic devices throughout this poem. He is very descriptive using things such as imagery and personification to express his intentions in the poem. Frost uses imagery when he describes the setting of the place. He tells his readers the boy is standing outside by describing the visible mountain ranges and sets the time of day by saying that the sun is setting. Frost gives his readers an image of the boy feeling pain by using contradicting words such as "rueful" and "laugh" and by using powerful words such as "outcry". He also describes the blood coming from the boy's hand as life that is spilling. To show how the boy is dying, Frost gives his readers an image of the boy breathing shallowly by saying that he is puffing his lips out with his breath.
Frost personifies the saw to resemble how humans are being controlled by their tools. In the beginning of ‘Out, Out—’, the saw is depicted as a tool that aids the young boy’s work. The reader notices that the saw is frequently the one “to bear a load”, and makes it seem like it is taking over the boy’s task (Frost, 8). However, it is not until line fifteen that the saw constructs the characteristics of a double-edged sword. The author carefully phrases his sentence when he says, “the saw…leaped out at the boy’s hand” (Frost, 17). Instead of placing the boy as the subject, the author chooses the saw as the subject, making it seem responsible for the accident. Meanwhile, the boy has “given the hand” to the saw, which makes him look vulnerable
Frost’s poem leaves the reader enlightened on the speaker’s outlook on death. “Ghost House” is an evolution through both the reader’s mood and the speaker’s tone surrounding death. Frost accomplishes this in his signature style and voice with clever word choice, from the morbid beginning to the accepting and almost willing end.
Robert Frost uses metaphor and symbolism extensively in ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’, developing deeper and more complex meanings from a superficially simple poem. Frost’s own analysis contributes greatly to our appreciation of the importance of metaphor, claiming that “metaphor [is] the whole of thinking,” inviting the reader to interpret the beautiful scene in a more profound way. However, the multitude of possible interpretations sees it being read as either carefully crafted lyric, a “suicide poem, [or] as recording a single autobiographical incident” . Judith Oster argues, therefore, that the social conditions individual to each reader tangibly alter our understanding of metaphor. Despite the simplicity of language, Frost uses conventional metaphors to explore complex ideas about life, death and nature. The uncertainty, even in the concluding stanza, that encompasses the poem only adds to the depth of possible readings.
Robert Frost is regarded as one of the most distinguished American poets in the twentieth century. His work usually realistically describes the rural life in New England in the early twentieth century and conveys complex social and philosophical themes. But his personal life was plagued with grief and loss, which is also reflected in his poems and the dark energy distinguishes Robert Frost’s poems, frequently conveyed in the use of lexical words like dark and its derivatives or synonyms, woods, snow, night, and so on. (Su, Y)
This poem is darker than most of Frost’s poems. One of the most depressing lines that are in this poem is, “Now if it was dusk outside Inside it was dark,” (Frost, Lines 3 to 4). From this line, the reader could take that even though there is some happiness outside, all Frost feels on the inside is sadness. It comes up in the poem that it is easier to feel sad than to be happy. In the middle stanza of the poem is when Frost’s positivity starts to reveal itself. He states, “The last of the light of the sun That had died in the west Still lived for one song more In a thrush’s breast.” (Frost, lines 9 to 12). From this statement, it can be gathered from the light that had died still living on. Even though it can’t be seen, Frost still knows that it is there. This is a main focus point of the poem. Having been sad for so long, it is a nice feeling to be happy. Frost is holding on to the feeling of it because he so desperately wants to be happy. This stanza gives a glimpse of hope to the readers, and that is the focus point of Come In, the poem written by Robert
Although this poem also is connected with nature, the theme is more universal in that it could be related to Armageddon, or the end of the world. Even though this theme may seem simple, it is really complex because we do not know how Frost could possibly relate to the events leading to the end of the world. It is an "uncertain" and sometimes controversial topic, and even if everyone was certain it was coming, we do not know exactly how it will occur and when. Therefore, how did Frost envision this event? Is he portraying it in a religious context, a naturalistic one, or both? The last line (14) speaks of God putting out the light, which brings out a religious reference, but the bulk of the poem deals with nature entirely. Physical images of water, clouds, continents, and cliffs present a much more complex setting than the simple setting in "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" or the yellow wood in "The Road Not Taken."
The vivid imagery, symbolism, metaphors make his poetry elusive, through these elements Frost is able to give nature its dark side. It is these elements that must be analyzed to discover the hidden dark meaning within Roberts Frost’s poems. Lines that seemed simple at first become more complex after the reader analyzes the poem using elements of poetry. For example, in the poem Mending Wall it appears that Robert frost is talking about two man arguing about a wall but at a closer look the reader realizes that the poem is about the things that separate man from man, which can be viewed as destructive. In After Apple Picking, the darkness of nature is present through the man wanting sleep, which is symbolic of death. It might seem that the poem is about apple picking and hard work but it is actually about the nature of death.
Prompt C I chose to write a reader response to criticism of the poem by Robert Frost “Out, Out”. I guess, I have a strange way of looking at things because this is not the first time I have a different opinion on what a poem or story means than the majority of the class. I don’t necessarily think everyone else is wrong, I just think I can justify my way of thinking. In “Out, Out” we as a class talked about how the boy had a terrible accident and died and how everyone then went back to work. I felt that it was more about nature and the destruction of the trees and forests.
Frost uses nature as a reflection of human experiences; just like humanity it can have seasons and life cycles. He uses different scenes to depict a certain mood for readers to step into the psychological happening of a man. The idea of how seasons change, Frost compares it through the life cycles that humans encounter. Contrary to popular opinion, I believe that nature is not Frost’s central theme in his poetry; it is about the relationship that man has with nature in which can be seen from “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, “The Road Not Taken”, and “An Old Man’s Winter Night.”