Out, Out— is a narrative poem published in 1916 by Robert Frost, a winner of several Pulitzer awards and a graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard University. The characters in the poem include the protagonist, a young boy, his sister, and their assumable parents. The initial lines of the poem are quite pleasant as they evoke the aural, visual, and olfactory senses, but the poem takes a sharp turn as it then presents readers with intense tactile imagery and a cold ending. Why would Robert Frost pull readers into this poem only to leave them with chills? There is clearly a strong message he wants to share; a message of his disapproval of World War I and all wars.
The initial setting of the poem takes place in the evening hours on a property …show more content…
The family unit in this poem is more important than the value of individual life; like a beehive, there is more emphasis on the survival of the group, than the survival of individuals. Just like war, death is an accepted reality in this poem as the family disregards the loss of their son and brother and continue in their own lives, and I quote, “They listened at 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-- Frost). This passage is written to express Frost’s feeling that life is without value during war because in wars soldiers are emotionally unattached to one another so that they can continue fighting for the greater crowd, their …show more content…
The arrangement of occurrence’s caught my eye because they follow the same pattern of war; things start out fine, then they get bad, and then there’s death. It’s also important to note that the protagonist, the young boy, was the one who lost his youth and his life, like many young men did in World War I. As previously noted, the date that Robert Frost published this poem is also especially important in making the connection to war in his poem, as it was written in 1916, (right in the middle of World War I), just after making the decision to leave Europe, and according William H. Pritchard, “England 's entry into the First World War hastened Frost 's return to America early in 1915.”(Pritchard, Oxford University Press.) It was also around this time that Frost lost a “brother,” according to Adam Kirsch, “No less important was the beginning of Frost’s deep friendship with the English poet Edward Thomas, whom he would later describe—after Thomas was killed in World War I—as “the only brother I ever had.” (Kirsch, Harvard Magazine). It’s clear that during the time in which this poem was written, Frost had a lot of negative outcomes as a direct result of the war and as a poet, why wouldn’t he write about his distaste? Overall, it’s fairly simple for readers to pinpoint Frost’s allegorical intentions in this poem through his expression of distaste in war, especially since he lost a
The initial setting of the poem takes place in the evening hours on a property …show more content…
The family unit in this poem is more important than the value of individual life; like a beehive, there is more emphasis on the survival of the group, than the survival of individuals. Just like war, death is an accepted reality in this poem as the family disregards the loss of their son and brother and continue in their own lives, and I quote, “They listened at 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-- Frost). This passage is written to express Frost’s feeling that life is without value during war because in wars soldiers are emotionally unattached to one another so that they can continue fighting for the greater crowd, their …show more content…
The arrangement of occurrence’s caught my eye because they follow the same pattern of war; things start out fine, then they get bad, and then there’s death. It’s also important to note that the protagonist, the young boy, was the one who lost his youth and his life, like many young men did in World War I. As previously noted, the date that Robert Frost published this poem is also especially important in making the connection to war in his poem, as it was written in 1916, (right in the middle of World War I), just after making the decision to leave Europe, and according William H. Pritchard, “England 's entry into the First World War hastened Frost 's return to America early in 1915.”(Pritchard, Oxford University Press.) It was also around this time that Frost lost a “brother,” according to Adam Kirsch, “No less important was the beginning of Frost’s deep friendship with the English poet Edward Thomas, whom he would later describe—after Thomas was killed in World War I—as “the only brother I ever had.” (Kirsch, Harvard Magazine). It’s clear that during the time in which this poem was written, Frost had a lot of negative outcomes as a direct result of the war and as a poet, why wouldn’t he write about his distaste? Overall, it’s fairly simple for readers to pinpoint Frost’s allegorical intentions in this poem through his expression of distaste in war, especially since he lost a