Introduction
The poem Out, Out is a description of a real life event that occurred to Robert Frost’s neighbor. In the verse, he describes the event that led to the boy’s injury, his reaction and family’s reaction to the injury as well as his death.
Analysis
The poet uses a lot of personification in the poem in order to deflect attention away from the victim to the forces that caused this tragedy. Frost gives objects human characteristics throughout the poem. For instance, he calls the tool that led to the boy’s death “The buzz saw”.
He also states that the saw was leaping out of the protagonists’ hand prior to the accident. In another instance the saw is rattling and snarling. By personifying the saw, the author wanted to shift any blame for the tragedy away from the boy. He intended on emphasizing that other forces took away the child’s innocence. It is at this juncture that one can associate the author’s geographical and historical context with the poem.
Frost wrote the poem in 1915 when the First World War had just begun. The war caused suffering and desperation among young children, who were innocent. The poet’s family had to leave Britain for the US owing to the turmoil that emanated from the War. Boys, such as the protagonist of the poem, lost their childhood after the event. One may compare the saw to the war because the saw symbolized the destruction of people’s childhood.
At the end of the poem, Frost alludes to indifference among the boy’s family members. He asserts that the rest of the family returned to their affairs. Frost does not intend on painting the protagonist’s family in a negative light; he simply wanted to show that they had no option but to move on with their lives, regardless of their loss. One may also compare that scenario with the goings on in Frost’s historical context.
The war caused the death of numerous soldiers in the battlefield. Some of them died horrifically, but their fellow combatants had to continue fighting regardless of the terror surrounding them. Just like the boy’s family, Frost wanted to show that many emotionally devastated soldiers had no choice but to continue with their duties. They did not even have time to lament over their loss.
At the time that Frost wrote the poem, the industrial revolution had already taken root and many people became dependent on the products of the revolution. Tools, such as the saw were now a key part of people’s lives. They could do a lot more work with these tools than before mass customization.
As a consequence, families adopted division of labor, which had arisen in the factories of the time. Man’s worth was now judged by his productivity; capitalism has crept into the lives of ordinary citizens. They utilized every source of labor that they could find; even children. Frost wrote the poem to criticize a capitalist system that disregarded children’s innocence and exploited their labor for gain.
In the poem, the boy was excited about an early break from work, so he got too carried away and lost control of the saw. It was at this point that it cut off his hand, caused excessive bleeding and killed him. Frost was protesting against a system that placed too much responsibility in the hands of children. It reduced them to machines, yet they were not even grown.
In the historical context, the poem was an illustration of the dangers and horrors of war as well capitalism. The war took away people’s dignity and led to their devastation. Capitalism reduced human worth to their productivity.