The Inevitable Buzz Saw: Robert Frosts’s “Out, Out – ”

"Out, Out – " by Robert Frost

The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard
And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,
Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.
And from there those that lifted eyes could count
Five mountain ranges one behind the other
Under the sunset far into Vermont.
And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,
As it ran light, or had to bear a load.
And nothing happened: day was all but done.
Call it a day, I wish they might have said
To please the boy by giving him the half hour
That a boy counts so much when saved from work.
His sister stood beside him in her apron
To tell them “Supper.” At the word, the saw,
As if it meant to prove saws know what supper meant,
Leaped out at the boy’s hand, or seemed to leap -
He must have given the hand. However it was,
Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!
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 –
Since he was old enough to know, big boy
Doing a man’s work, though a child at heart –
He saw all spoiled. “Don’t let him cut my hand off -
The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister!”
So. The hand was gone already.
The doctor put him in the dark of ether.
He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.
And then – the watcher at his pulse took a fright.
No one believed. They listened to his heart.
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.

“Out, Out – ” retells a gruesome tale of a pastoral scene turned tragic. Why would a poet choose such a scene? Frost’s first-hand witness invokes inevitable sympathy and pathos for a boy, yet the narrator remains emotionless. Perhaps the poem’s title hints at an answer, in the allusion to the final scene of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth.” The symbol of that flickering, brief candle represents the brevity of life. In “Out, Out – ” few personal comments are made on the poet’s part, suggesting an idea of the inevitability of death and the futility of life. A slice-of-life cycle: presented for consumption, digested, and passed, leaving the reader to proceed to another day, another poetic meal. Day is done – bring on another. It may be like yesterday, it may not. Frost himself said, “In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life. It goes on.” This has all happened before and will happen again. The reader remains with poetic crumbs on the plate, rather than with emotions wrung dry.

Vivid imagery at the onset: sound, sight and smell, permeate the senses. Against the din of the saw buzz, images of falling sawdust, stove-length sticks, the five mountain ranges and a Vermont sunset are meant to please, topped by the olfactory “Sweet-scented stuff” (3) wafted by a breeze complete a minds-eye view. The onomatopoeia of the opening salvo, “The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard” (1), is redoubled a bit later: “And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled” (7). The power tool has animalistic life. “Snarled” evokes angry dogs, wolves, and other wild beasts. “Rattled” conjures a venomous fanged snake giving imminent warning of a strike. The saw itself has a ring to it: the buzz of an angry yellowjacket or wasp hive. Each adjective resonates with sound and fury. The juxtaposition of the buzz-saw against a tranquil setting highlights the conflict between technology and nature, wherein the boy is forced to relegate his childhood, thereby going against Nature.

In this agrarian setting, a boy does the work of a man: operating a power saw. Boys, being boys, appreciate release from labor even more than their grown counterparts. How fortuitous that the boy’s sister, doing the work of a woman, arrives apron-clad, “To tell them ‘Supper’” (14), at which point he is “saved from work” (12). The buzz saw underlines the boy’s mechanical routine - this part of the day occurring by rote, each day, every day. Workaday ordinary, reinforced by the empty understatement, “And nothing happened: day was all but done” (9). The girl arrives, the men can “Call it a day” (10), the narrator regretfully adds, “I wish they might have said” (10).

“As if it meant to prove saws know what supper meant, leaped out at the boy’s hand, or seemed to leap - He must have given the hand” (15-17). Ironically, to give one’s hand suggests a greeting in friendly handshake. This boy, in the end, gives much more than that. The buzz saw, a typically inanimate object, becomes a cognizant being, aggressively snarling and rattling. When the sister makes the dinner announcement, the saw demonstrates a mind of its own by “leaping” out of the boy’s hand in its excitement. The boy, still a “child at heart” (24), is not to blame for the accident; the saw is. Irony continues as the boy utters “a rueful laugh” (19). His laughter is a shocked outcry rather than a mere snicker.

The boy loses his hand in this nasty accident, but more tragically unexplainable is that while under the doctor’s anesthesia, the boy dies – apparently of shock. None in attendance can believe it. Senseless: a death signifying nothing. The boy pleads to a fellow child, his sister: “Don’t let him, cut my hand off, [sister!]” (25-26). In a lovely metonymous gesture, he holds up the hand “as if to keep the life from spilling” (21-22). Blood spills with a tilt of an arm, but life hangs in the balance. The boy’s gesticulation is a mere attempt, since nothing can be done, for he is still enough of an adult to realize that he has lost too much blood to survive. Above all, the boy hopes to maintain physical dignity in death, rather than die with a missing hand. A revelatory moment, “He saw all spoiled” (25), a vision of himself in future – a grown but incomplete man – explains the choice to let life spill. A choice – perhaps not shock at all.

Frost seems flippant in a concluding line, “No more to build on there” (33). At first the phrase seems a wry and callous reference to construction jobs where power saws are important to the overall build. But perhaps the narrator refers to life, in that there is nothing more to report. Life, eventually snuffed like an extinguished candle, the boy’s heartbeat or pulse that fades, “Little – less – nothing!” (32). Nothing can be built on nothing. Certainly sorrow, mourning and a tearful funeral will come, but none of that pertains to the poet’s message. The living have lives to lead, foundations to build upon.

By the end of the poem, the narrator runs out of words for the tragedy of the boy’s death. While the first twenty-six lines contain elegant metaphors and descriptions of the scene, the final eight lines are detached and unemotional. The narrator’s “So” and “No more to build on there” (27, 33) reveal that even the narrator is unable to find any explanation for a young boy’s death. A day happened, and in that day, this moment happened. In the last line of the poem, the narrator is completely detached, almost as if indifference is the only way to cope with the boy’s death. The people of this New England town “[turn] to their affairs,” (34) and can do nothing more than move on with their lives, as must we. The boy’s life, this poem, and life itself – a brief candle.

“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. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
– William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act V, Scene V