Robert Frost: The Ax-Helve
LITB1 Robert Frost
Robert Frost: The Ax-Helve
What’s the story?
The speaker is in his ‘yard’, chopping up some wood with an axe, when the swing of his axe is stopped by a man who has crept up behind him. (Normally, the only interference he experiences when chopping wood is from the low-lying branches of trees – when he’s chopping in the woods.) The man – Baptiste – is a French-Canadian neighbour. He takes the axe and inspects it. They don’t know each other very well and the speaker seems a little alarmed by this sudden and unexpected interruption (understandably), thinking that perhaps Baptiste has come to confront him about something – hence his desire to ‘disarm’ him first. It turns out that the reason is far less dramatic; Baptiste wishes only to tell him that the helve (handle) of his axe is ‘bad’ – not handmade, but mass-produced on a machine, and likely to ‘snap right off’. He invites him to his house, where he says he will give him a much better axe that he has made himself.
That night, the speaker visits Baptiste’s house, where he is welcomed into the kitchen, where Mrs. Baptiste sits rocking in a chair. (She almost rocks herself into the stove.) Baptiste says she can’t speak English very well, but the speaker is not so sure, musing that she seems to know more than she lets on, as she watches Baptiste get out his axes. He points out their various merits, paying particular attention to the handles: the lines are not ‘put on it from without’, but genuine; they are the native grain of the wood. It is this quality that gives the tool its strength, he says.
They talk of other things – ‘knowledge’ – Baptiste reveals that he does not send his children to school, but keeps them at home, instead, and the speaker wonders if he has invited him to visit because he desires friendship. Perhaps the whole axe thing was just a way for Baptiste to initiate friendship. Yet the axe is the final image of the poem, standing erect on a horseshoe. The two
Robert Frost: The Ax-Helve
What’s the story?
The speaker is in his ‘yard’, chopping up some wood with an axe, when the swing of his axe is stopped by a man who has crept up behind him. (Normally, the only interference he experiences when chopping wood is from the low-lying branches of trees – when he’s chopping in the woods.) The man – Baptiste – is a French-Canadian neighbour. He takes the axe and inspects it. They don’t know each other very well and the speaker seems a little alarmed by this sudden and unexpected interruption (understandably), thinking that perhaps Baptiste has come to confront him about something – hence his desire to ‘disarm’ him first. It turns out that the reason is far less dramatic; Baptiste wishes only to tell him that the helve (handle) of his axe is ‘bad’ – not handmade, but mass-produced on a machine, and likely to ‘snap right off’. He invites him to his house, where he says he will give him a much better axe that he has made himself.
That night, the speaker visits Baptiste’s house, where he is welcomed into the kitchen, where Mrs. Baptiste sits rocking in a chair. (She almost rocks herself into the stove.) Baptiste says she can’t speak English very well, but the speaker is not so sure, musing that she seems to know more than she lets on, as she watches Baptiste get out his axes. He points out their various merits, paying particular attention to the handles: the lines are not ‘put on it from without’, but genuine; they are the native grain of the wood. It is this quality that gives the tool its strength, he says.
They talk of other things – ‘knowledge’ – Baptiste reveals that he does not send his children to school, but keeps them at home, instead, and the speaker wonders if he has invited him to visit because he desires friendship. Perhaps the whole axe thing was just a way for Baptiste to initiate friendship. Yet the axe is the final image of the poem, standing erect on a horseshoe. The two