Frost begins the poem by describing a young boy cutting some wood using a "buzz-saw." The setting is Vermont and the time is late afternoon. The sun is setting and the boy's sister calls he and the other workers to come for "Supper." As the boy hears its dinnertime, he gets excited and cuts his hand on accident. Immediately realizing that the doctor might amputate his hand, he asks his sister to make sure that it does not happen. By the time the doctor arrives, it is too late and the boy's hand is already lost. When the doctor gives him anaesthetic, he falls asleep and never wakes up again. The last sentence of the poem, "since they (the boys family and the doctor) were not the one dead, turned to their affairs" shows how although

When talking about the saw, Frost uses personification and repetition. Personification is seen when he says that at times it can run light and at others it has to "bear a load", talking as if the saw was a person which had to carry something. Repetition is used to help build an image of the saw's movements where the words "snarled and rattled" are repeated several times throughout the poem to display an image of the saw moving back and forth. Frost's variation in the lengths of his sentences almost reflect the boy's life for when the boy is still alive and healthy, the lengths of Frost's sentences are much longer then they are when the boy is dying.

The poem's title, "Out, Out-" is taken from the Shakespeare play Macbeth where the main character, Macbeth, speaks after he is told that his wife is dead. Using a simile to compare Lady Macbeth's death to a candle which is blown out he says "Out, out, brief candle!" Both Lady Macbeth's death and the death of the young boy from Frost's poem are tragedies. They are both about people who's lives come to an end before it is their time to die, before they've lived a long life and aged to die a natural death. Comparing them to a candle is suitable because just like a candle's light can go in a matter of seconds caused by a simple blow, their lives ended in a matter of seconds. A candle that leaves darkness once it is not shining any long

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 938
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)