"'Out, Out—'" by Robert Frost

Robert Frost uses several literary techniques to emphasize the tragedy of the death of the young boy in his poem, “‘Out, Out—’”

• The speaker of the poem evokes strong feelings of sadness and grief with concise allusion.

• In his title, the speaker alludes to the death of Lady Macbeth, the final scene of Shakespeare’s tragic play Macbeth.  In his monologue, Macbeth cries, “Out, out, brief candle!” comparing his late wife to a candle that has been extinguished suddenly and unexpectedly

• Macbeth’s monologue has a tone of pain and intense grief.  The speaker, by alluding to this monologue, evokes all the emotions it contains in a two-word title.

• Immediately after the boy’s accident, the speaker directly quotes the boy.

• The boy fearfully tells his sister, “Don’t let him cut my hand off” (25).  The boy believes that losing his hand is the worst that could happen to him.  This belief, however, is dramatically ironic because the boy dies at the end of the poem.  This dramatic irony enhances the tragedy of the boy’s death because it displays the boy’s naïve innocence.

• Moreover, direct quotation makes the incident feel more real.  Telling the reader exactly what the boy cries is more effective than narrating in the third person.  The boy’s first person plea intensifies this moment of the poem above any other moment.

• The end of the poem is rather cold; as soon as the boy dies, the scene appears to return to normal disturbingly quickly.

• The shift in tone happens in line 32, literally the exact same line in which the boy dies.  The speaker, referring to the boy’s heartbeat, narrates, “Little—less—nothing!” and, without even starting a new line, continues, “and that ended it.”  This fast shift is disconcerting because the reader may feel as though the boy’s loved ones do not have enough time or room to grieve over him.

• Immediately, the people who witnessed the boy’s death “turned to their affairs”, as if they are finished grieving.  The lack of sentimentality at the end of the poem makes the reader uncomfortable because of the human need to grieve the loss of a loved one.