‘… And they, since they

Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.’

Frost takes the title 'Out, out-' from the act five of Shakespeare's play Macbeth, where Macbeth remarks upon the
transience of life when he learns of Lady Macbeth's death, saying “Out, out, brief candle. Life is but a walking shadow.”
Macbeth regards life as brief and meaningless, insignificant as a 'walking shadow,' and as easy to end as snuffing out a
candle. Frost upholds the notion of the fragility of life in his poem. The life of the boy in the poem is short and is taken
away in a split second.

From the very beginning, Frost develops a sinister atmosphere, opening with the personified buzz saw that “snarled and
rattled.” By personifying it, the buzz saw is portrayed as a character in its own right throughout the poem. Moreover, it is
not merely a character, but also the antagonist of the poem, although it can be argued that as Frost implies, the real
antagonist of the boy's death is society. Regardless, Frost gives the buzz saw an animalistic personality, the phrase “snarled
and rattled” being used to describe it 's movement three times within the span of seven lines. The use of onomatopoeic
verbs reinforces the danger involved in handling it, relaying harsh and unmerciful connotations, and all of this combines
together to construct a savage creature, building tension and making the attack seem inevitable. Because the reader is
aware of the wild, animalistic traits attributed to the buzz saw, the idea of an accident is almost expected.

Frost presents life as short and its end inevitable. Because the poem is a narrative style with a lack of rhyme scheme or a
specific metre, the story unfolds in a realistic manner, effectively conveying the message of life being brief as suggested by
the connotations of the title. Like Macbeth, Frost akins the span of life to a “brief candle,” short lived, fragile, and easy to
take out. The setting of the poem contrasts with the events. The background is made out to be a stage where the tragedy
and action takes place, implying that life is also merely a stage, and the action will end at a point. Frost paints a picture
with his words trough the use of sensory language such as “sweet scented stuff,” “breeze drew across,” “five mountain
ranges one behind the other” and “sunset far into Vermont.” The reader is made to smell the freshly cut wood, feel the
breeze and visualise the mountains, setting the scene for the poem. The features are enchanced with the repetition of
sounds in the descriptions; the sibilance of the soft 's' sounds in “sweet scented stuff,” the calm of the hypnotic 'n' in
describing the mountains and the sunset, and the 'r' in the description of the breeze. This helps Frost in constructing the
stage in the reader's mind, but also misleads the reader into a false sense of tranquility. Perhaps, Frost's intention is to
illustrate the tragedy in a seemingly beautiful place by juxtaposing the setting and the events of 'Out, out-.' Although
there is beauty in the landscape, there is danger close at hand.

Additionally, Frost portrays the transience of life as argued by Macbeth by portraying the youth of the boy, and
demonstrating the unceremonious way in which it is taken away. In order to effectively articulate this, Frost first
establishes the boy's innocence in the lines “To please the boy by giving him the half hour that a boy counts so much
when saved from work.” These lines highlight his naievity and how young and innocent he is, for finishing work a half
hour earlier to be so meaningful to him. In short, the boy is only a child. Frost underscores the idea that when presented
when half an hour, take it rather than invite perils, because life is short, and easy to annihilate. The personification of the
saw culminates when it's made to appear as attacking the boy consciously in an effort to restrict him from supper. The
saw “leaped out at the boy's hand” in order to “prove saws knew what supper meant.” This makes the attack seem
intentional and the horrifying consequence of life “spilling” the outcome aimed for. The fragility of life is illustrated in
the boy's futile attempt to stop the bleeding, showing how fraile life is,that it cannot be sustained for long, and can very
quickly and easily be ended.

Frost later declares, the child was “doing a man's work.” The fact that the boy is performing duties of those older than
him also underscores the inequitability of his short life. Frost does not blame the boy for his death, instead, again
emphasises his youth and being “a child at heart,” implying that the bystanders are responsible for the shortness of his life,
as well as the unjust means by which is it snatched away, rendering him short lived. Furthermore, the unjustness of life is
also depicted in the form of the boy's sister who is “in her apron” and calls for “supper.” It is likely that the boy is not the
only child to be shouldering burdens that are an adult's responsibility, and the chances that “supper” was prepared by the
sister is probable. Frost thus illustrates and criticises the notion of child labou which was prevalent in rural American
society at the time due to financial struggles. The children are unjustly burdened with responsibilites such as cutting
wood, the inequity and danger of which Frost tries to convey to society. Besides Macbeth, there is a second source of
inspiration from which Frost has derived the details of the poem. A newspaper article was published on a boy having his
hand severed by a wood saw, and Frost based the details of the poem on a real event. Therefore, the poem would have
had a heavier impact on society at the time, when a reader would truly be able to recognise the message of the poem.
However, the poem still holds a universal significance in terms of the fragility and transience of life as well as how it is
inequitable.

On the other hand, death and the ending of life are portrayed as inevitable. Before the actual death of the boy, Frost
employs a metaphor in the context of the poem in the statement “the day was all but done.” Not only does it incorporate
a foreboding atmosphere with a sense of impeding doom, but is also an example of pathetic fallacy, relating to the
impeding end of the boy's life. As the day is 'all but done' so is the boy's life. Frost also utilises repetition in illustrating the
lack of avoidance of death. The repetition of the word “hand” and alliteration of the 'h' sounds convey the horror of the
event. They speed up the gradual realisation of what has happened and ultimately lead to a point where the life has to be
kept from “spilling.” This shows the extent of blood loss the boy has suffered and further makes his death seem
inevitable.

Death is presented as an uneventful and unemotional process. Frost illustrates the decline of the boy's heartbeat in only
three words, “Little-less-nothing!” like a mere observation. Additionally, the stopping of the heart is phrased in a way
that portrays the boy as an object. Instead of describing it as the end of a life, Frost phrases it as “ended it”, as if he were
an “it.” There is also no sign of grieving over his death, only a cold acceptance as everyone “turned to their affairs.” The
final lines relate to the central idea of the quote from Macbeth, that life is cheap and death is to be accepted as inevitable.
This is seen in eveyone going back to their concerns in a mechanical process that disregards the significance of the boy's
death. Frost deliberately does this to point out how easily life is lost and alludes to the title and its significance to the
poem. The sentences towards the end are structured in brief, half clause lines that lead the reader onto an eventual
conclusion of death, and the chapter closed.

Frost not only presents death as inevitable, but also insignificant. The one to monitor the boy's pulse is not a member of
the family, (the family's presence or reactions is not discussed either), but a “watcher,” a professional term, the use of
whoch denotes industrialism and further adds to the mechanical process of the acceptance of death.