Robert Frost's Poem Out, Out

It Is Never The Boys Fault The poem “Out, Out---“ by Robert Frost is a narrative poem describing when a boy was doing a man’s job and sawing wood. When the boy was told it was time for dinner, he cut off part of his hand. This poem seems to be very shallow and to be only about this boy dying but its really more of that. This poem constantly takes the blame off of the boy for causing his death and puts it onto other people. The first time this takes place is when Frost blames the boys parents for making him do adults work even though he was a boy. Frost says, “Call it a day, I wish they might have said” (Line 10). When he says this, he is saying he wished that the adults had let him quit. If the adults had let they boy quit then he would still be alive. This shifts the blame of the boy messing up to the adults for not letting him quit and this caused his death. Also he blames them for his death by making the boy do a mans work. Frost states, “Since he was old enough to know, big boy doing a man’s work, though a child at heart” (23-24). The boy, whether he is doing a mans job or not, is still a boy and Frost blames the parents for making him work and eventually killing him. Yet back in the time of this poem it was normal for boys to do this type of work to help their fathers. Since
Frost says, “They listened at his heart. Little- less- nothing! – and that ended it.”(31-32). Frost says this because all of the adults do nothing in the end to save the boy. The doctor tries in the end but all they do is fail. By the doctor failing and the other adults doing nothing, Frost takes the blame from the boy and puts upon these adults watching him die. Frost also says that they don’t care by saying, “And they, since they were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.” (33-34). Here Frost says that the adults didn’t even care that the boy died. They just let the boy die and moved on with their