Robert Frost Personification

In his poem “Out, Out”, Robert Frost introduces his readers to a boy who was forced to leave his childhood behind in order to begin work and help his family. We are able to see, although the boy was forced to mature faster than most young men of his age, that he still had a child-like innocence. This innocence is what Frost wanted to portray to the readers as he uses personification and irony to reveal the tragedy of an irreproachable boy’s death and the impact that it made. In the opening lines, the narrator of Frost’s poem sets the scene and leads the reader into the environment of the poem. The narrator describes the noise of the buzz saw that the boy is using as it “snarled and rattled in the yard” (line 1). The two onomatopoeias help the reader to better picture the action, and the words emphasize the particular point that Frost is trying to display. These words were repeated again throughout the next lines, and the description of the saw’s noise foreshadowed the mistake that would later happen.
As the boy’s sister comes out to announce that supper is ready, the buzz saw was said to have “leaped out of the boy’s hand, or seemed to leap” (line

The ironic tone of the poem continues when the boy reveals his hand “in appeal” (line 21), as if he realizes that his hand cannot be healed. Yet, he pleads with his sister that there is still hope for his hand and that she should not allow a doctor to remove it. The boy wishes to keep his physical dignity rather than to having a missing hand before his death (GradeSaver, 2009). The boy is old enough to understand that he has lost too much blood to be able to survive. He attempted to “keep the life from spilling out of his hand” (line 21 and 22), but his efforts are deemed useless. Nothing could be done to save the innocent boy’s life after his hand had been