"Out Out" Essay

             Most people would agree that society focuses to heavily on working and making money rather than enjoying life and living it to its fullest potential. In his poem “Out Out,” Robert Frost demonstrates this through strong imagery, personification, and a shocking transition from peace to violence.  Frost begins the poem with imagery describing the surrounding landscape, showing how beautiful the world is and how enjoyable it could be without work. Frost then transitions to the boy working, juxtaposing the beauty of the mountains with the “snarling” of the buzz saw, personifying the saw as an evil being. Frost mentions how the boy longed to get even a half hour break so he could be a boy rather than be forced into doing “man’s work” while “still a boy at heart.” The boy’s sister soon arrives and announces supper is ready. Frost again personifies the saw “leaping” out of the boy’s hand and cutting his other one. Though the accident happened because the boy lost concentration, Frost blames the situation. If the boy hadn’t been forced into an early man hood and made to work, or had been given that half hour break, he would never have gotten hurt.

            If the boy had been allowed to enjoy his childhood, he wouldn’t have been working, and if he wasn’t working, he wouldn’t have been called for supper and been distracted and wouldn’t have cut his hand. Frost blames the work for the death of the boy demonstrating how making children do too much work can have severe consequences. While death may be a bit hyperbolic, it is clear that child labor can negatively affect a child. Children don’t always have the same attention span and same understanding for the importance of work and thus accidents like the one described by Frost can happen. Along with physical harm there is psychological damage that can come to a working child. In the beginning of the poem Frost mentions how the boy wanted to have a half an hour break to do things a boy would do like run around and play. Studies have shown that children who don’t play enough as children lack the social and creative skills necessary in adulthood for real jobs, while a farmhand may not need these skills, they are needed if the child every decided to leave the farm or to do business selling things in town.

            At the end of the poem, after the boy dies, all the on lookers, the boy’s sister and presumably the boy’s parents just return to work, unaffected by the death of a young innocent boy, since they “weren’t the ones dead.” This is another comment by Frost on the effect of work on society. If the people had taken the time away from work to develop a personal relationship with the boy they would have felt a pain from losing him. The people were too involved in their work to feel they needed to grieve for the boy. Even if the people didn’t know the boy they should still be effected by his death. Frost is showing that people have become so money oriented that they aren’t even impacted by the death of a boy right in front of them. If people cared about others as much as they did about money or themselves they would have stopped to help the boy and grieve for his passing instead of just turning their backs and going on with their lives.

            In conclusion, “Out Out,” by Robert Frost is social commentary on the negative impact of over working. If people stopped working and lived, building relationships and seeing the world, a lot of unnecessary consequences could be prevented, and life itself could become more enjoyable.