Skip to main content

How does Robert Frost create tension in the poem "Out, Out—"?

In Frost's poem, "Out, Out--," there is an underlying tension between machine and human.


One interpretation of Frost's poem "Out, Out--" considers the year in which it was written, a time when boys were losing their lives to the machinery of war. The technology of war was tearing limbs from young men, depriving them of the vigor of their youth, if not their lives. Perhaps, then, in this poem Frost imitates the dichotomy of man and machine in war, one that is certainly unfair when the "man" is still but a boy.


The tension of this poem is first expressed with the personification of the saw; that is, Frost affords the saw the powers of a living creature, thus equalizing it as a potential adversary to the boy, just as in war. It is an aggressive creature, too, that works ever so swiftly: 



The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard
And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,...
And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,



Clearly, the saw's aggression is expressed when it "Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap—" severing his hand.


The onomatopoeia of "buzz" and the sound words in the above lines create a certain tension, as well. For, the saw makes aggressive and disturbing noises with the snarling and rattling sounds. Also, the alliteration of "dust and dropped" and "saw snarled...snarled," which speeds the line, suggests a certain danger for the boy.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more