Summary and theme of 'Out, Out-' by Robert Frost- HSC English 1st paper

Summary and theme of 'Out, Out-' by Robert Frost- HSC English 1st paper

The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard

And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,

Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.

And from there those that lifted eves could count

Five mountain ranges one behind the other

Under the sunset far into Vermont

And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,

As it ran light. or had to bear a load.

And nothing happened : day was all but done.

Call it a day. I wish they might have said

To please the boy by giving him the half hour

That a boy counts so much when saved from work.

His sister stood beside him in her apron

To tell them 'Supper'. At the word, the saw.

As if to prove saws knew what supper meant.

Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap

He must have given the hand. However it was,

Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!

The boy’s first outcry was a rueful laugh,

As he swung toward them holding up the hand ‘

Half in appeal, but half as if to keep

The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all --

Since he was old enough to know, big boy

Doing a man’s work, though a child at heart --

He saw all spoiled. "Don’t let him cut my hand off ‘

The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister!"

So. But the hand was gone already.

The doctor put him in the dark of ether.

He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.

And then-the watcher at his pulse took fright. ‘

No one believed. 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.

Summary: A young man is cutting firewood with a buzz saw in New England. Near the end of the day, the boy’s sister announces that it is time for dinner and, out of excitement, the boy accidentally cuts his hand with the saw. He begs his sister not to allow the doctor to amputate the hand but inwardly realizes that he has already lost too much blood to survive. The boy dies while under anesthesia, and everyone goes back to work.