An Unfolding of Robert Frost’s “Out Out

In order to completely understand this poem we should begin by looking at the title. The words “Out, Out” are a reference to Shakespeare’s Macbeth. “Out, out” are the two beginning words of Macbeth’s monologue that he speaks after he learns of his wife’s death. Macbeth’s wife however dies due to a mental breakdown due to guilty feelings that incur after she helps her husband murder the king Duncan of Scotland. Lady Macbeth died for a reason but this boy in the story dies for no purpose what so ever.

The poem begins by describing the sounds that a buzz saw makes. It “snarled” and “rattled” like a rabid angry beast. This is Frost blaming the saw. He’s trying to make the saw sound like a horrible

The boy begins screaming when he sees that his hand is gone. He moves towards his sister making an urgent call for help. He is trying to keep “life” or blood from spilling out of his body. Since he is a big boy he knows about what will happen to him. He is screaming at his sister to make sure that the doctor doesn’t take his hand off. Unfortunately, his hand is already gone.

beast that is thirsty for the blood and body parts of little children. The saw however, is not a living breathing beast. It does not want to remove the boy’s hand. The saw was cutting large, stove-like pieces of wood that smell sweet when the blows across it. The mentioning of stove sized pieces of wood foreshadows the coming of the boy’s sister who later tells him that dinner is ready just a moment before he cuts his hand off.

When the doctor arrives he anesthetizes the boy with ether. He becomes fully unconscious and the person near his other hand takes his pulse and discovers that he no longer has one. The onlookers then begin listening to his heart and discover that it is no longer beating. The boy is dead. By having the boy die right after the doctor arrives Frost is movi

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