Frost brings the saw to life and emphasizes its ferocity to tell the reader that the saw is uncontrollable, and how the boy has no chance of escaping the accident. He achieves this by using a series of personified images: ‘The buzz saw snarled and rattled.’ The cutting noise of the saw is compared to a wild animal in order to outline that the saw has a mind of its own and that it can be unpredictable. He portrays the ‘buzz saw’ as killer of a young life to show that life can end brutally. The use of ‘snarled’ and ‘rattled’ is onomatopoeic, which is effective because it emphasizes that this young boy should not be using such tools that create wild noises. Using the dramatic image of the boy’s hand and the saw making contact conveys the unpredictability of the accident: ‘Neither refused the meeting.’ This contact is compared to a meeting or an appointment in a metaphoric form. This quote is an under-statement because he compares a saw ripping bone and flesh to a meeting or appointment. Frost does this to emphasize that the meeting was inevitable as the saw is uncontrollable by ‘leaping out of the boy’s hand.’
Frost feels sympathy towards the boy because he emphasizes the innocence and youth of the boy. He achieves this by introducing a first person response to the situation: ‘Call it a day, I wish they would have said/to please the boy by giving him the half hour/ that a boy counts so much when saved from work.’ His tone depicts the strong emotion of regret and sympathy, because if they had ended work a half hour earlier then the boy may not have died. Frost also emphasizes the innocence and youth of the boy by calling him a ‘boy’, a ‘big boy’ and a ‘child.’ The innocence is implied by showing that the youngster is doing ‘a man’s work’ in a dangerous environment instead of playing.
Frost explores the idea of the brevity of human life. He achieves this by using suspense to describe what happens in this poem with sentences such as the saw ‘leaped out of the boy’s hand’ and ‘his first outcry was a rueful laugh.’ This touches on the frailty of life. The speaker makes the reader think about how fragile and short everyone’s life really is and how it can be taken away at the most unexpected moment. Frost uses the title: ‘Out,Out-’ to tie in with Macbeth’s soliloquy on the death of his wife: ‘Out, out, brief candle!’ This outlines the idea that life is short, and then it is over. Frost wants to tell the reader that everyone dies someday and that life is brief regardless and that people move on: ‘And they, since they/ Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.’ This image implies the boy’s family was hard-hearted, that they didn’t love him enough to grieve for him. Farm-work takes priority over the emotional loss
Frost emphasizes the lack of love from the boy’s family when, ‘He swung toward them holding up the hand/half in appeal.’ This image shows that the boy turned for help because of the speed with which his ‘life’ came ‘spilling’ and because his heart-beat faded: ‘little-less-nothing!’ However, there was no one but his helpless sister to aid him. This emphasizes our helplessness in the face of sudden, meaningless and violent death. The lack of love is further emphasized by Frost’s belief that the family should not make a boy do ‘a man’s work’ and how he has nobody, who cares for him. Frost outlines the lack of care from the boy’s family: ‘big boy doing a man’s work, though a child at heart.’ This image suggests the poet understands that it was unnatural to overwork the boy. Frost thinks the family over-used their son and deprived or robbed him of his childhood by also not ‘giving him the half hour’ of freedom he wanted.
In ‘Out,Out-’ Frost alludes William Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth, where Macbeth is shocked to hear of his wife’s death and comments on the brevity of life and refers to how meaningless life is. Frost concentrates on the apparent youth of the boy with phrases such as ‘though a child at heart.’ He may have done this to emphasize how warfare can force innocent, young boys to leave their childhood, and ultimately be killed too young. The last line in this poem: ‘Since they/ Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs’ is detached and blunt, mirroring a nations ability to waste youth and to detach itself and continue killing despite the dead bodies Frost publishes this poem in 1915 to convey his disapproval of the disposable attitude towards life.
