At first, the saw in the poem is seen as the main perpetrator, responsible for the tragic death of the boy. Remember, though heavy imagery and personification was used throughout the poem but centred mostly around the saw, drawing attention away from the dominant fundamental cause - the naivety of the boys sister. The entire situation of a young boy handling such heavy machinery, which could be compared to a much stronger grown man, almost determines the fate of the boy from the very beginning, despite what the sister did. So, this is left to the reader to deduce what the essential cause was - the malevolent saw or the naive sister. This suggests that the author wants the reader to question the reason, cause and sheer inevitability of the event.
Frost uses different stylistic devices throughout his poem. He is very descriptive using things such as imagery and personification to express what he wants to say. Frost uses imagery when he describes the setting of the place - a boy sawing some wood. He tells his readers the boy is standing outside by describing the visible mountain ranges, and sets the time of day by saying that the sun is setting. Frost gives his readers an image of the boy feeling pain by using contradiction words such as "rueful" and "laugh" and by using powerful words such as "outcry". He also describes the blood coming from the boy's hand as life that is spilling. To show how the boy is dying, Frost gives his readers an image of the boy breathing shallowly by saying that he is puffing his lips out with his breath. When talking about the saw, Frost uses personification and repetition. Personification is seen when he says that at times it can run light and at others it has to bear a load, talking as if the saw was a person which had to carry something. Repetition is used to help build an image of the saw's movements where the words "snarled and rattled" are repeated several times throughout the poem to display an image of the saw moving back and forth. While Frost uses iambic pentameter for the rhythm, he uses blank verse for the rhyme. His variation in the lengths of his sentences almost reflects the boy's life for when the boy is still alive and healthy, the lengths of Frost's sentences are much longer then they are when the boy is dying.
It is Frost's style of writing that makes his readers feel as if they are part of the poem, as if the events in the poem are truly taking place and the readers are merely people who are standing by and watching it all. It is his writing which allows him to make an allusion between the story of a tragic boy and the story of a tragic hero. It is his writing which makes his poem so unique.
The poem embodies and accentuates how mishap is habitually consequential upon the naivety of others. It also exemplifies common faults of todays society that occurs in everyday life (to a lesser extent).
