Robert Frosts Out, Out as Commentary on Life - Essay Example

Robert Frost’s “Out, Out” as Commentary on Life Robert Frost’s poem “Out, Out” is a poem that presentsthe type of picturesque landscape for which he is known as well as a darker element of life. The poem is basically a very short story about a young boy who gets his hand sawed off while cutting wood and eventually dies as a result of the shock. In the meantime, the family is seen to turn back to their work as soon as it is verified that the boy is dead. As a result of the brevity with which Frost brings the poem to a close, “Out, Out” has often been criticized for the callousness with which the family is portrayed. “The poem almost satirizes society’s indifference at a child’s death. … The audible pause [of the caesura in line 32: “Little – less – nothing! and that ended it”] offers finality to the boys passing and after the tragedy the boy’s relations continue with their lives as normal, as if nothing had happened” (Lacy, 2008). However, a closer investigation into the contents of the poem reveals that Frost was attempting to illustrate the severity of these people’s lives as compared to the life he knew. While Frost, as first person detached observer of the events taking place, is able to appreciate the beauty of the sights and smells of the mountain home, the family itself is struggling to survive. This is first illustrated in the details of the story itself. Frost provides a hint of foreshadowing in line 10 when he says, “Call it a day, I wish they might have said.” This line introduces an ominous note to a poem that was already slightly uncomfortable with Frost’s return to the sound of the saw as well as establishes the idea that this is a first-person narrative. The speaker is observing the scene and appreciating the beauty of the world around him. He talks about the “five mountain ranges one behind the other / Under the sunset far into Vermont” (5-6) and the comforting smell of the sawdust when he describes the “sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it” (3). The recurring sounds of the saw, though, highlight the fact that the only person in the scene who is enjoying this view and down-to-earth sensation is the narrator as everyone else is busily working. This is despite the fact that the day is ending, “day was all but done” (9), and people who are well-provided for typically take these hours to enjoy the moment. “Life was hard for many American farm workers in the early twentieth century, as families struggled to make enough money to cope financially. Certainly everybody in this poem is hard at work, including the children: the young boy … ‘Doing a man’s work, though a child at heart’ (24)” (Gregory, 2007). While the narrator begs that the boy be given this last half hour of fading daylight for himself, the family cannot afford to lose the productive time. Thinking about this concept for a moment begins to illustrate the desperate condition of the family. If they couldn’t afford to give the boy half an hour of playtime in the evening, how much more are they going to be suffering with the full-time loss of the boy’s help? When the family quickly returns to their daily chores following the boy’s death, it is not so much a cold, mechanistic rejection of his humanity as it is a recognition among those left living that their own chances for survival are dependent on their returning to work. The language of the poem also suggests that there is more emotion in the loss of the boy than the family’s actions might otherwise suggest. This begins not with the family’s reaction, but the reaction of the boy himself when the saw bites into his hand. “Then the boy saw all / Since he was old enough to know” (22-23). Realizing the severe damage to the hand and the probability that it would be useless in helping his family in their subsistence existence, the boy is not concerned as much for himself as he is of the loss of work this accident will represent for his family. “The boy seems to realize that even if he recovers from this accident he will be unable to take his place alongside his family as a worker on the farm, and will therefore become a liability” (Gregory, 2007). Although the loss of a half hour or even the few moments necessary to enjoy a beautiful view were unthinkable to the family, the doctor is sent for, meaning someone had to drop work to travel to get him while someone else, “the watcher at his pulse” (30), remained beside the boy as the doctor administered aid. The idea that the rest of the family is probably gathered about the boy wherever he lay is implied by the statement that “no one believed. They listened at his heart” (31). The plural reference and emergency situation would naturally draw the entire family in to see if there was anything they could do to help this small brother out, but the boy is dead. It is in the death of the boy, which takes place in the final three lines of the poem, that many people criticize Frost for the callous attitude of the family depicted. Surely they cannot simply walk away from the small corpse without a tear. Yet this seems to be exactly what Frost indicates as he describes the death: “little – less – nothing! and that ended it. / No more to build on there. And they, since they / Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs” (32-34). For those focused on the unseemly return to work by the living so shortly after the death of the boy, it is necessary to remember the situation as it is described by Frost earlier in the poem. These people could not afford the momentary glance upward to appreciate the beautiful sunset over rolling scenery, they couldn’t afford the time to mourn either. “In practical terms the family are now one worker down, meaning that the remaining members will have to work harder if they are to survive: they simply do not have the luxury of time to mourn the lost child” (Gregory, 2007). This is not to say they do not mourn, though. More than simply missing a useful tool and helpful contributing member of the family, the gathering about the boy’s sick bed suggests a love and concern that is, ultimately, insufficient to keep him alive. It is even possible that the boy, realizing he will now be a liability to the family, out of love for them chooses to die rather than live as it is not specified whether he died from loss of blood, shock or something else. The family will need to mourn as they work or die themselves a much slower death. While there is room for critics to complain that Frost was too harshly critical of poor mountain families because of his treatment of them in his poem, particularly in their unfeeling reaction to the boy’s death, there is ample evidence throughout the poem that Frost was actually criticizing the social world that would allow a family to be so poor that they didn’t even have time to enjoy a sunset. Through language choice and story progression, it is shown that the narrator feels a deep sense of sympathy for this family and their loss, as well as their acknowledged inability to either appreciate the wonders of the world around them or the time necessary to appropriately mourn the loss of a loved son and valuable worker. Works Cited Frost, Robert. “Out, Out.” Title of Book. Place of publication: Publisher, year of publication, p. #. Gregory, Elizabeth. “Robert Frost’s ‘Out, Out’.” Suite 101. (October 24, 2007). February 4, 2008 Lacy, Louise A. “’Out, Out’ by Robert Frost.” BookStove. (January 18, 2008). February 4, 2008 Read More