This is one of Robert Frost's more shocking poems, dealing with the violent maiming and death of a young boy as he chops wood on the family farm.

The title of the poem provides an early clue to its contents. It is a quote from the end of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, where Macbeth learns of his wife’s death:

Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. (V.v, lines 23 – 26)

Macbeth has come to regard life as brief and meaningless, “signifying nothing,” and easily taken away. The life of the young boy in the poem is certainly too short, and snatched away from him in a split second.

Financial Hardship

Perhaps more than any other of Frost’s poems, “Out, Out –“ represents the harsh reality of life in the countryside. 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 has been left in charge of a buzz saw which “snarled and rattled” in a menacing way, “Doing a man's work, though a child at heart” (line 24).

No Time to Appreciate the Beauty of Nature

The scene around the boy and his family is a beautiful and picturesque one, if only they had time to admire and enjoy it:

And from there those that lifted eyes could count

Five mountain ranges one behind the other

Under the sunset far into Vermont. (lines 4 -6)

No-one is looking at the view: all are too busy. The boy’s sister has been in the house preparing supper, and when she comes out to fetch the family, the boy momentarily loses concentration:

His sister stood beside them in her apron

To tell them "Supper." At the word, the saw,

As if to prove saws knew what supper meant,

Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap--

He must have given the hand. (lines 13 – 17)

This seems to place blame for the incident on both the boy and the machinery: certainly the personification of the saw creates an unfavourable impression of this dangerous new machinery now being used across the country.

Loss of a Hand

At first the reader does not realise what has happened. We understand the results of the accident at the same moment the boy does:

The boy's first outcry was a rueful laugh,

As he swung toward them holding up the hand

Half in appeal, but half as if to keep

The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all-- (lines 19 – 22)

The boy seems to realise 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:

He saw all spoiled. "Don't let him cut my hand off--

The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister!" (lines 25 – 26)

Worse is yet to come. The poem ends with the boy’s death, presumably as a result of the shock he has undergone. After the drama of the incident itself, the boy’s death is strangely anti-climactic:

They listened at his heart.

Little--less--nothing!--and that ended it. (lines 31 – 32)

Life Goes On

The family’s reaction to the tragic and sudden loss of a son seems callous and uncaring on first reading:

And they, since they

Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs. (lines 33 – 34)

However, 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.

For further discussion of Frost's poems including Road Not Taken, Dust of Snow , Putting in the Seed, Nothing Gold Can Stay, Stopping by Woods, Birches, Hyla Brook , Mending Wall and After Apple-Picking, please click on the appropriate link.