Lian Hearn says, “Death comes suddenly and life is fragile and brief…”. In Robert Frost’s poem ‘Out, Out-’, the author frequently demonstrates the fragility of life and death’s ability to change it in an instant, through the use of literary allusions, imagery, personification, and tension. These devices are used to help illustrate to the readers the fragility of life and how death can turn an ordinary day into a catastrophic one. Throughout the poem, Frost focuses on the theme of death and its capricious nature that can affect anyone at anytime.
Frost starts off the poem by using the title to allude to Shakespeare’s Macbeth and employing a blank verse to contribute to the idea of life’s delicacy and death’s ability to alter anyone’s life at any moment.
When Frost alludes to Shakespeare he is demonstrating life’s ability to be cut off abruptly and gone in a flicker. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, after Macbeth’s wife has died, Macbeth says “Out, out brief candle” (Shakespeare), and Frost’s poem is entitled ‘Out, Out-’. By not only alluding to this passage, but taking it and cutting it off, Frost demonstrates the fragility of life and how life can be cut short easily. By excluding the brief candle portion of the text, Frost implies the abruptness of death and how life can be gone in the flash of second, just like a candle can be blown out in a second by a simple breeze or huge gust of wind.
Additionally, the use of a blank verse makes the poem unpredictable since there is no regular rhyme scheme. The entirety of the poem sticks to blank verse and refrains from a rhyming pattern. This emphasizes that because of the blank verse, the poet is allowed a freedom that is not usually attainable with a rhyme scheme and Frost uses this to his advantage by indicating that death is unpredictable, just as the rhyme scheme in his poem is. Lastly, the iambic pentameter is known as a heartbeat rhythm, and Frost uses it to represent the life of the boy. The entire poem is set to an iambic pentameter, and when Frost says, “So. But the hand was already gone,” (Frost), he creates an irregular rhythm and uses it to demonstrate the boy’s death. By creating a sudden irregular rhythm, Frost demonstrates how death is something that
Frost?s poem delves deeper into the being and essence of life with his second set of lines. The first line states, ?Her early leaf?s a flower.? After the budding and sprouting, which is the birth of nature, is growth into a flower. This is the moment where noon turns to evening, where childhood turns into maturity, and where spring turns into summer. At this very moment is the ripe and prime age of things. The young flower stands straight up and basks in the sun, the now mature teenager runs playfully in the light, and the day and sunlight peak before descending ever so quickly into dusk. The second line of the second set states, ?But only so an hour,? which makes clear that yet again time is passing by and that a beginning will inevitably have an end.
Frost affects the tone through word choice because he uses the word “perish” to give emphasis of the world vanishing. Instead of using words like disappear or leave, he uses perish because it gives the poem a stronger meaning. He also uses the word “destruction” to give the poem an intense feeling. By using this word, he makes the poem deeper and stronger than it already is.
What are the rhythm patterns that Frost uses in the poem (include the scansion and technical methods: alliteration, assonance, and consonance)? Frost uses both masculine rhyme and end rhyme. The masculine rhyme is the rhyming sounds that contain only one syllable such as wood, stood, and should. The end rhyme pattern that Frost uses is, A, B, A, A, B C, D, C, C, D E, F, E, E, F and G, H, G, G, H. (Arp & Johnson, 2009). There are lines of this poem that show the alliteration method, two examples are found in line 6-“then took the”, and line 8- “wanted wear” Assonance also
Not only are metaphors utilized throughout the poem, but a literary device known as Imagery is as well. Imagery is alternative as important a device for it allows for the reader to have a clear picture of what the character in the poem is visualizing. Furthermore, it also helps covey the theme the author is aiming to represent to the reader. Imagery is made known in stanza two line three, which states, “Because it was grassy and wanted wear” (Myer, 1091). Here the author is using imagery to inform the readers the traveler is coming up with a reason for why one path could be more favorable over the other. The reader analyzes this line of imagery to obtain a clearer representation of the traveler’s decision-making process. Another line where the author uses imagery is in stanza two line five, which states, “Had worn them really about the same” (Myer, 1091). Here the author is using imagery to inform the reader that the paths are “worn” down, which informs the reader that both of his choices have been equally chosen by people before him. These examples help the reader begin to form the theme of self-justification in decision-making. After analyzing the metaphors and the imagery Frost uses in this poem, the reader can conclude so far that the theme the poet is conveying
The poetic techniques were symbolism, imagery, and tone. Symbolism is the most powerfully used technique due to the fact a good number of lines located in this poem is used to signify a certain object or idea related to our life or today’s world. Imagery in the sense that you can visualize the path, the yellow wood, the undergrowth, the divergence; it is all made very vivid. Frost did this throughout; you know trying to stimulate the reader’s mood using one’s senses. In this poem, imagery permits the reader to imagine the scene that this poem takes place in resulting in an enhanced understanding of the theme. The tone Frost’s work presents is an insecure attitude which allows the theme to be brought out due to the fact the theme relates to a dilemma in one’s life. These techniques strongly aid in the revealing of this specific theme.
To analyze the poem better I took each word as if it symbolized a certain characteristic. In lines three and four, "From what I've tasted of desire I hold those who favor fire" it led me to believe that Frost was trying to use desire as a metaphor to fire. Desire, can usually be used a negative or a positive manner depending on the context it's use. In the poem I think that Frost is using it in a negative sense, because he is uses words like end, perish, and destruction in the poem. Negatively the word desire can mean the drive to win or receive something at any cost, the urge for power, which is very destructive. In lines six and nine "I think I know enough of hate to say that for destruction ice is also great and would suffice". Saying that ice is a metaphor to hate. The word hate is worldly known to have a negative condensation. Hate is also
"Out, Out," by Robert Frost is a gruesomely graphic and emotional poem about the tragic end of a young boy's life. It is a powerful expression about the fragility of life and the fact that death can come at any time. Death is always devastating, but it is even more so when the victim is just a young boy. The fact that the boy's death came right before he could " Call it a day" (750) leads one to think the tragedy might have been avoided and there by forces the reader to think, "What if." This poem brings the question of mortality to the reader's attention and shows that death has no age limit.
Despite its possibly being the more difficult path, Frost signifies the essence of perseverence through rhythm. Throughout the poem, Frost employs a repetitive, trance-like rhythm to compliment the speaker's struggle to fight off reality and remain in his carefree world. Furthermore, Jhan Hochman explains it as "an ingenious form of interlocking rhyme: the third unrhymed line of the first three stanzas provokes the subsequent stanza's rhymed sound" (Hochman 4). Frost's use of rhythm is an eloquent and clever element that expresses the weak and weary state of the speaker in his moment of a life-changing decision. Yet, in the last stanza frost brings his flowing lines to an abrupt halt with "But I have promises to keep" (Frost 13). With this line, Frost not only shifts the meter of the poem, but also signifies the speaker's realization that he cannot give up or quit because of the life commitments he has made. Frost powerfully uses the rhythm in "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" to emphasize the importance of choosing the path of life and all of its responsibilities instead of the easy way out.
There are several likenesses and differences in these poems. They each have their own meaning; each represent a separate thing and each tell a different story. However, they are all indicative of Frost’s love of the outdoors, his true enjoyment of nature and his wistfulness at growing old. He seems to look back at youth with a sad longing.
Frost has a compelling way of writing the poem, in the beginnings of the poem there is a lot of metaphors and descriptions of the setting and the saw and the boy. Once the boy is injured
Although this poem also is connected with nature, the theme is more universal in that it could be related to Armageddon, or the end of the world. Even though this theme may seem simple, it is really complex because we do not know how Frost could possibly
Overall, Frost’s poem “Out, Out-” uses a variety of literary devices to distinguish the setting and the most thorough meaning of the poem such as imagery, diction, and several figurative language
why he stopped, may be he doesn’t know himself. May be, he is comparing the beauty of nature to something, but on a symbolic level, the snow strongly reminds me that the poem is set in winter, and which is also widely represented as the image of death.
is saying, and Frosts personal pain that he is suffering from that he ingrains into this poem. The
As another poetic device and reference to the simile above, Frost uses allegory in lines 15 and 16, specially in line 16: “To the dark and lament”, makes the reader make the conclusion that the above expression, means death, or the border line he felt when he felt choosing to “come in” or not. However, on the last stanza of the poem, he expresses: “But no, I was out for stars; / I would not come in.” these two lines provide the answer to this invitation, and also provide another deeper meaning and metaphor, when he refers to stars as regret to actually committing the