Out Out

Out out is a narrative poem that outlines, in a certain way, the dangers of letting a child do a man's work. The boy, whom we find to be young, has an unfortunate accident with a buzz saw resulting in the boy's death. The poet uses language structure and characterisation to convey the tragic circumstances in which the boy is killed and how society reacted upon it.

the title is an allusion to the story of macbeth by shakesphere where the quote continues to say "out, out, brief candle". this shows the fragility of life where just like a candle being easily blown out, the boy easily loses his life to a buzz saw.

The writer starts off by personifying the buzz whos responsible for the boy's death. The words ‘’snarled and rattled’’ are continuously repeated throughout the poem to give the buzz saw a devastating and monstrous character. When the sister makes the dinner announcement, the saw demonstrates that it has a mind of its own by “leaping” out of the boy’s hand in its excitement. ‘’leaped’’ at the boy, makes it seem as though this monstrous character knew what ‘’supper’’ meant like it was a living thing-breathing, respiring and hunting.

The oxymoron “rueful laugh” suggests that the young boy regretted what he had done and tried to laugh it off which is not possible because after all he did lose his hand and he eventually does die after the doctor gave him an anaesthetic and he did not wake up. Those two words sum up the tone of the poem and what the boy felt. The effect of this on the reader is that they feel sorrowful for the boy because a little child did lose his life.Due to this, Frost tries to make it as though it was not the boys fault as he was still a "child at heart", even though everybody knows that the saw is the inanimate object. By personifying the buzz saw as a monster, Frost generates sympathy by making the audience realise the fact that the boy is just a young boy and would be scared of things such as this.

Frost brings out the