Brevity of Life Robert Frost’s Poem “Out Out” Essay Example

boy drops the saw, but severs his hand at the same time. The speaker uses suspense to describe what happens with words such as the saw "[l]eaped out of the boy's hand"(16), and his “first outcry was a rueful laugh"(19). This provides readers a clear statement on the frailty of life. Frost gives his readers an image of the boy feeling pain by using forceful words such as "outcry"(19), and conflicting words such as "laugh” (19), and "rueful "(19).

He describes the blood coming from the boy's wounded hand as life that is spilling. When the doctor gives him anesthetic, “[h]e lay and puffed his lips out with his breath” (29), the boy is dying. The speaker through telling this story makes the reader think of how fragile life really is, and in an instant, it could end. Frost uses personification to great effect throughout the poem. The “buzz-saw” (1), although technically an inanimate object, it is repeatedly said to have "snarled” (1) and "rattled" (1), as if it were a cognizant being.

The saw described to have “[l]eaped out of the boy’s hand” (16) in excitement, as if it “knew what supper meant” (15). Personification is in the title that comes from the line in Macbeth, shocked to hear of his wife's death he comments on the brevity of life, “out, out, brief candle” (Kennedy and Gioia 417), where the death of Lady Macbeth is compared to that of an extinguishing candle. It refers to how unpredictable life is. The narrative poem, “Out Out-,” by Robert Frost, uses imagery and personification to depict the uncertainty of life.

The main idea of the poem, the briefness of life,

expressed bluntly in the final lines. These lines give a conclusion to the boy's deadly mistake, "[n]o more to build on there. And they, since they [w]ere not the one dead, turned to their affairs"(33). The speaker tells readers that life is fragile, and can end at any moment.

The end of the poem is saying that when people die life does not stop. The speaker, though never identified, and the boy's sister seemed to have had a close relationship to the boy, as if they were all family. Although shocked and horrified by his death, they "turned to their affairs"(34), because they were still alive, and therefore must keep living life.

Works Cited

1. Frost, Robert. “Out Out”