POETRY SPRING BREAK ASSIGNMENT

"Out, Out" by Robert Frost.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/238122

Prompt: Write an essay in which you explain how the organization of the poem and the use of concrete details reveal both its literal and its metaphorical meanings. In your discussion, show how both of these meanings relate to the title.

"Out, Out" by Robert Frost contains a huge contrast in tone.  To begin with, everything is fine- the wood is "sweet-scented," against the backdrop of "Five mountain ranges one behind the other under the sunset far into Vermont."  By the end, the boy sawing is dead.  Through Frost's poetic flow the actual events leading up to the death are vague, requiring close analysis.  At the same time, Frost ends the poem in a way that surely divides readers- some may view it as hopeful, others as cynical and depression.  But this poem is about more than a boy dying from a buzz saw accident; it is about the circle of life, moving forward, and the brutal reality of death.

Before the accident occurs, there is clear foreshadowing in the poem that can easily be missed the first time around.  The opening line, "The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard," is the first hint that something is out of balance.  The "snarling and rattling" don't suggest a happy ending.  The buzz saw sounds like a feral animal; a beast looking to tear into some meat.  Immediately after that Frost delves into the setting, a seemingly beautiful day in Vermont, making the reader think that this will be a "happy" poem.  In a sense, it is.

Inside this brief glimpse of a life is a metaphor built by Frost.  This poem is death; this poem is the circle of life.  The boy is working and suddenly it all ends.  His hand, his life force, is severed from his body.  He drifts into the calming "dark of ether" before passing away.

Perhaps the last two lines are the most chilling in the poem, because of their honesty.  "No more to build on there. And they, since they were not the one dead, turned to their affairs."  It is not the death of the boy that is the most shocking, but the aftermath.  It is the realization of our existence as living beings- when a person dies, the world does not stop turning.  It moves on, and people move on because they have to.