"Out, Out—" is a 1916 single stanza poem authored by American poet Robert Frost, relating the accidental death of a young man, with references to

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 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''.

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 Natio ...

. 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''.

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

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" is the beginning of the second sentence of one of the most famous soliloquies in William Shakespeare's tragedy ''Macbeth''. It takes place in the beginning of the fifth scene of Act 5, during the time when th ...

" soliloquy). Macbeth 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 is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as ''oink'', '' ...

alliteration Alliteration is the conspicuous repetition of initial consonant sounds of nearby words in a phrase, often used as a literary device. A familiar example is "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers". Alliteration is used poetically in various ...

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 psychotherapy. Forms There are five major types of sensory im ...

, 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 described as "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking worl ...

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 "The Road Not Taken" is a narrative poem by Robert Frost, first published in the August 1915 issue of ''The Atlantic Monthly'', and later published as the first poem in the collection '' Mountain Interval'' of 1916. Its central theme is th ...

' 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, Fros ...

.'"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