III. 10th
“Out Out -”
Robert Frost
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 eyes could count
Five mountain ranges one behing 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 it meant to prove saws know 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 was spoiled. “Don’t let him cut my hand off -
The doctor, when he comes. Don’t let him, sister!”
So. 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 a fright.
No one believed. They listened to 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.
“Eating Together”
Li-young Lee
In the steamer is the trout
seasoned with slivers of ginger,
two sprigs of green onion, and sesame oil.
We shall eat it with rice for lunch,
brothers, sister, my mother who will
taste the sweetest meat of the head,
holding it between her fingers
deftly, the way my father did
weeks ago. Then he lay down
to sleep like a snow-covered road
winding through pines older than him,
without any travelers, and lonely for no one
“Eating Alone”
Li-young Lee
I’ve pulled the last of the year’s young onions.
The garden is bare now. The ground is cold,
brown and old. What is left of the day flames
in the maples at the corner of my
eye. I turn, a cardinal vanishes.
By the cellar door, I wash the onions,
then drink from the icy metal spigot.
Once, years back, I walked beside my father
among the windfall pears. I can’t recall
our words. We may have strolled in silence. But
I still see him bend that way-left hand braced
on knee, creaky-to lift and hold to my
eye a rotten pear. In it, a hornet
spun crazily, glazed in slow, glistening juice.
It was my father I saw this morning
waving to me from the trees. I almost
called to him, until I came close enough
to see the shovel, leaning where I had
left it, in the flickering, deep green shade.
White rice steaming, almost done. Sweet green peas
fried in onions. Shrimp braised in sesame
oil and garlic. And my own loneliness.
What more could 1, a young man, want.
THE SUBSTITUTE by Stephen Dunn
When the substitute asked my eighth-grade daughter
to read out loud,
she read in cockney, an accent she’d mastered
listening to rock music. Her classmates laughed
of course, and she kept on,
straightfaced, until the merciful bell.
Thus began the week my daughter learned
it takes more than style
to be successfully disobedient.
Next day her regular teacher didn’t return;
she had to do it again.
She was from Liverpool, her parents worked
in a mill, had sent her to America to live
with relatives.
At night she read about England, looked at her map
to place and remember exactly where she lived.
Soon her classmates
became used to it – just a titter from Robert
who’d laugh at anything. Friday morning,
exhausted from learning
the manners and industry of modern England,
she had a stomachache, her ears hurt, there were
pains, she said,
all over. We pointed her toward the door.
She left bent over like a charwoman, but near
the end of the driveway
we saw her right herself, become the girl
Who had to be another girl, a substitute
of sorts,
in it now for the duration.
“Mothers”
Nikki Giovanni
the last time i was home
to see my mother we kissed
exchanged pleasantries
and unpleasantries pulled a warm
comforting silence around
us and read separated books
i remember the first time
i consciously saw her
we were living in a three room
apartment on burns avenue
mommy always sat in the dark
i don’t know how i knew that but she did
that night i stumbled into the kitchen
maybe because i’ve always been
a night person or perhaps because i had wet
the bed
she was sitting on a chair
the room was bathed in moonlight diffused through tiny window panes
she may have been smoking but maybe not
her hair was three-quarters her height
which made me a strong believer in the samson myth
and very black
i’m sure i just hung there by the door
i remember thinking: what a beautiful lady
she was very deliberately waiting
perhaps for my father to come home
from his night job or maybe for a dream
that had promised to come by
come here! she said i’ll teach you
a poem:
i see the moon
the moon sees me
god bless the moon
and god bless me
i taught that to my son
who recited it for her
just to say we must
to bear the pleasures
as we have borne the pains
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April 15th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
The poem, “Out Out” by Robert Frost generated a lot of class discussion today in our humble period four and I thought that as part of my blog, I’d highlight the one feature of the poem that I feel caused the most emotional and symbolic conflict:
“And they, since they were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.”
This one excerpt from the poem served as its closing sentence and most meaningful message that the piece of literature had to offer. It provided the reason for the most discussion during class and also serves as an example of the most human characteristic depicted in the poem; selfishness. You see, what this specific line is alluding to is the selfishness of humans, in that after a death or an terrible event that occurs to someone else, they carry on with their lives and are glad that it didn’t happen to them. The poem was about a boy who had to take the responsibilites of a man because of the circumstances and was never given the time to just be a child. In the process, there was an accident of which the result was his death. The last line of the poem causes conlfict because it can be taken as negative, positive, neutral, and there is some dispute as to whom the line refers to. The sentence can be taken as refering to either the doctors and the lumberers or the boy’s family.
The negative aspects to this line could be seen as relating to the whole theme of human selfishness. Of course, the negative aspect would be refering to the doctors and lumbermen and would be seen as negative because of their lack of relationship with the boy. The doctors did not know this boy personally and neither would’ve the lumbermen. Therefore, their reaction to the boy’s death would be a sigh of relief that it wasn’t them who died as opposed to the boy. This is exactly the kind of situation that Holden Caufield would’ve tried to prevent acting as a “catcher in the rye.” He would’ve wanted to protect the innoncence of the boy and would’ve allowed him to live as a child rather than a man. His speculative condemnation of the carelessness of the doctors and lumbermen is evident in the definition of his character and the genre of his personna.
The sentence could’ve been seen as positive and refered to the family in that the family knew that that’s what the boy would’ve wanted, although unlikely because of the boy’s approximate age, indicationg a lower maturity level. More likely is that the sentence was meant to act neutrally and refered to either groups in that after a period of mourning, both the family, the doctors, and the lumbermen would’ve eventually had to move on with their lives. However given the textual evidence, I’m most inclined to believe the most former; the comment was negative.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:28 am
“Out, out” is a depiction of the sheer reality that life goes on after death and life is too short. Robert Frost opens the poem with an image: a boy in his tool shed with a vicious saw. The saw, according to Frost’s powerful adjectives, has a mind of its own as it snarls and rattles. In the serene setting of the mountains of Vermont, the saw continued to snarl and rattle even as the boy smelled the dew of wood and relaxed. Frost uses repetitive adjectives to underline the fierce nature of the saw the boy uses. Next, the boy’s sister comes out to announce dinnertime, and the saw jumped as if startled by the invitation. Again Frost personifies the saw of having a mind of its own by saying, “As if to meant to prove saws no what supper meant”.
The next image Frost uses is the image of blood seeping through the boy’s veins and out of his body. He calls it “life” and refers to the boy’s attempt to save his hand as “half as if to keep the life from spilling from it”. Frost uses the image of life, to show the read just how many years this boy has acquired; there is a sense of forced maturity when the boy is explained as “big boy, doing a man’s work through a child’s heart.” At this point the character becomes very clear to the reader: a boy, who missed out on most of the immature fun in life because he was forced to work instead of playing in the mountains of Vermont. This description of the boy so juvenile, makes the climax of the poem even more devastating.
“Don’t let him cut off-the doctor as he comes,” is what the boy screamed in sheer terror as he realized his hand may have to be amputated. Frost gives a sense of urgency at this point of the poem when the boy’s shrill pleads are interrupted by the dismemberment of his hand. Then the reader can hear the boy’s pulse through Frost’s words “little…less…nothing”. Until the boy was gone. The words used to describe the boy’s tragic fate, are cavalier, as if life is just another chapter in the big scheme of things. There is little shock to be had by the boy’s death, and within seconds, Frost validates the scene with “And they, since they were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.” To me, the last line of the poem means “life goes on”. Unfortunately in our world, people die everyday, and although it is sad to hear about such affairs, human beings tend to grieve for a short period of time and move on. Death seems to put life in perspective, because life is short and it is important to optimize every day and death reminds people that life is too short. “Out, out” is a very depressing poem because it deals with the death of a child, however, I think it is an excellent poem to outline somewhat realistic terms and to show the circumstances of such an accident.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Reaction to “Out Out”.
By. Robert Frost
This poem is a very quick one. Though it is lengthy, its storytelling eggs you on to read faster, impatient to discover the ending. And, when you get to the end, it is done, finite, nada mas, no more. When you ponder its meaning , especially that of the last line, you are moved by it.
This telling of an anecdote of a boy who, injured by a saw, looses his life, was not just a well-written tragedy. This is because, in its last line Frost writes, ‘And they, since they were not the one dead, turned to thier affairs’. This shows a completion to the story, after much suspense. The boy died, and his family moved on. They kept living. But, is that really the case? This poem can be taken two ways if it concerns his family. They could’ve returned to their lives thinking the boy would’ve wanted it that way. Or, they might have returned because they do not want to think of the terrible loss they must now endure. Either way, they did start living again.
This powerful piece makes one think about the major effect of loosing someone is, and how there are always many options of what to do in the situation. With this poem, you see that life is a wonderful thing, and the little things you always remember, may be you last things in life. And, with that you are content. But, it also shows that with such miniscule things a part of your life, you can take them for granted because life is short and it is impossible to stop it from ending, such as the family’s lovly surrounding which they are always to busy working to enjoy. So, this poem could be viewed in a pessamistic way. And, I cannot prevent myself from referencing one of the greatest poets and authors we know, Shakespeare. When it was made apparent to me the likeness between the title of this poem and a famous monologue of the great Shakespearian play Macbeth, I reread the poem in excitement and very quickly saw this poem to be mixing with the lines from the play. In Macbeth, when Macbeth discusses Lady Macbeth’s death, he uses the words, ‘Out out, breif candle.’ And, from this lies the pessamistic take on the poem “Out Out”. With the words of Macbeth swirling through my head, I could not help but think of what Macbeth thought about the death of his loved one. He said life was worthless, short, and he quickly moved on after his wife had died, because it is not always worth it to worry about. And so, the poem now held a new meaning for me. What if those family members had returned to their lives thinking that their loss was so miniature when compared to the big picture of things. Then, all of this boy’s life was worthless. If those who knew him best treated him as Lady Macbeth was “mourned”, then he would not truly be remembered as one who passes away should be.
Being so young, and doing such hard work, you feel shock and sadness when he is proclaimed dead just as his family could have. The snarling, rattling evil machine he had to use at such an age was the villian. Because of that saw, he would no longer be living. When first cut by the saw the boy laughed, because he did not at first feel pain or the awaiting future. But, when realization took him over, he knew that not only his hand might be leaving him, but in accompianment his life. He would not be able to do the things others could do. Along with his already harsh life he would have to endure more of a struggle. While screaming to his sister the desire not to loose his hand, he never once thought he might die. The worst he had to woory was a hand and a life in which he lives, not in which he dies. And as the reader, you are with him. You did not expect the outcome, and niether did his family.
But I concluded that this would be a warmer ending, because they did care about him. I believe not only out of hope for a softer ending, but with the knowledge that he trusted his sister, even if he did loose the hand he wanted to keep.
There are still multiple possibilities in which to look at this poem. The people returning to their lives, could have been the boy’s doctor, or the other wood workers. They could’ve turned from his death with regret in the loss but knowledge that there are more things to do. Or maybe without any feelings at all on the subject. One thing is for certain, when the boy and the people around him were in the beautiful secenery of Vermont, they boy did not get the chance to experience it because his story was cut short, as it ought not to have been.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
I think that the poem’s main idea that it tries to get across is the dangers of pressuring children to grow up to quickly. In the poem the boy is said to be “doing a man’s work” I think that the entire poem was meant as a metaphor to show people the dangers of robbing children of their childhood. The boy is not being allowed to go and play like the child he wants to be, instead he is in his yard cutting wood. The accident in which the boy looses his hand is to show that too much strain on a child can cause horrible accidents. You can see that the boy doesn’t want to be there when the author says “to please the boy by giving him the half hour that a boy counts so much when saved from work” You can tell that he would rather be out playing in the five mountains described in the opening of the poem. He is being forced to do a man’s work and mature too quickly. Also after the accident you can see that the boy has had so much strain that he can not even think straight. even though his hand is all ready gone he pleads with his sister not to let the doctor cut off his hand. He has had so much strain on him that he can not even assess the situation fully. Also it deprives the boy of the care and concern that he should have gotten dieing at such a young age. Once he dies all his family and the doctors simply go about there affairs as if he was supposed to die. When an older person dies that type of reaction is acceptable because they have lived a full life and it is their time to go, but when a child dies the family and friends owe it to the the child to show some concern and morn the loss. The pressure to mature to quickly that the boy faced from his environment completely stripped him of his child hood and innocence to the point where his own family did not even take time to grieve his passing.
April 16th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
This poem has two very different moods. In the first few lines it paints a scene of a beautiful picture of a peaceful day. It describes the setting as a day of slow work in the calm mountains of Vermont. However, as the poem progresses, an accident occurs and the mood turns grave. An accident becomes more than just a simple consequence and it grows to a catastrophic ending.
The idea of the poem seems to convey the situation in life where it can turn from happy and tranquil to dangerous and depressing. The teetering balance of life can be simply turned upside down because of a small event such as an injury. Also it seems to state that though a lost life is catastrophic to the people themselves, it does not have much relevance to their work. The people do mourn for the dead boy but soon they have to return to their jobs. The reason for their abrupt return may also be because the death did not mean much to them. So the indifference may be because of the responsibility of work, or the uncaring nature of the people.
The title “Out Out” reminds me of the delicacy of life. Having recently read MacBeth, the title reminds me of the quote MacBeth said, “out out brief candle…” He was talking about Lady Macbeth’s life after he finds out that she is dead. The idea applies because the boy dies, which symbollizes the extinguished candle and he dies at a very young age, showing how life can be very brief. Though MacBeth knows how he will die, the boy in the poem had a death that was so sudden that it was a surprise. There was no way that he would have known that he would die that day and by that incident.
The few lessons that this poem teaches is probably not to be careless in life, so it may possibly prevent things that can be hurtful in the end and that though many precautions can be taken, unpredictable things can happen. There is an inevitability for accidents to happen so it may be best to be humbled and to realize that accidents can happen to anyone. After reading this poem I feel that life can be depressing but the most should be made out of it when good things, such as a peaceful day, comes around.
by kwl06jessiacc
April 16th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
“Out, Out”, written by Robert Frost, is a poem that conveys the message that kids should just be kids. The poem tells about a boy who is hard at work sawing wood, but really desires to be “saved from work”. He wishes that someone would come by and just tell him to go play for a little while. However, no one tells him, so he continues to saw wood. When the boy hears his sister telling him that it is supper time, the saw seemed to jump out of the boy’s hand and deeply cuts him. He is complete shock and tries to stop the bleeding. In the end, the boy dies, and all people return to their everyday lives.
This poem has many aspects that must be analyzed in order to understand the meaning better. First, Frost uses personification to make the saw seem alive. The saw “Snarled, rattled, and leaped.” These simple words made the saw seem alive. Also, when the boy’s hand is cut, his immediate reaction is just complete shock. However, the boy wants to make sure that when his sister comes, she makes sure that the doctor does not cut his hand off. At this point, he is more worried about the use of his hand than death itself. I would probably react the same way the boy did. I would not think about anything other than the fact that I might not be able to use that hand again, which would affect so many aspects of life. I would be devastated by this.
Lastly, the boy is so focused on his work, that he lacks the time to just be a kid. He is “doing a man’s work, though a child at heart.” Children need time to play and have fun. Childhood should be carefree. Kids do need responsibilities, but they should not be doing work like the boy in this poem. The result of a boy doing a man’s work is exactly what happened here. It also shows that accidents happen sudden and out of nowhere.
Lastly, the main concept portrayed in this poem is that life must go on. The family will mourn the loss, but they also must continue on with their everyday lives. There was simply nothing the family could do about the loss. It shows that life is so precious and so delicate. Life is extremely fragile, especially the lives of young children. There is just so much to lose because children have such an imagination and spirit. Even when a loss is experienced, life will go on. Instances like this one show that we need to appreciate life every single day and live each and everyday to the fullest.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
“Out, Out-” by Robert Frost is the tragic short story of a young boy’s death viewed from the point of view of an unknown person. I think that it shows that in society, the way that human’s take life for granted. For instance, the narrator states that “…those that lifted eyes could count/Five mountain ranges one behind the other/Under the sunset far into Vermont.”. People don’t pause and look at nature, they just focus on working. Also at the end of the poem, the narrator says that there was no mourning of the death of the child, the sister and the doctor just kept on going with their lives. I think that the taking of life for granted and the way people must get on with their lives after another one’s death are the two lessons of the poem.
At one point, the narrator shows his wish for the boy’s life to be saved. He says that he wishes that they called it a day and stopped working, and give the boy a break. Not only because he is just a child, but because his life would have been saved. He consistently talks about how the boy was so young. He says that the boy was “Doing a man’s work, though a child at heart”. This shows how even though he should be out playing like a normal kid, he is working because of the way people sometimes don’t care about kids’ childhoods and make them grow up too fast.
The doctor and the sister both turned to their affairs after the death of the unnamed boy. Do they do this because they don’t care about human life? Are they so selfish that they don’t even shed a tear because they are not dead themselves? No, they continue living because they need to. Dealing with the deaths of others is a part of life. Not going on with your life after another person’s death is taking your own life for granted, because you can completely waste your life just mourning over 1 person. I believe its alright that the sister and doctor turned to their affairs, because they would have had to at some point. However, I think that the sister should have given her little brother a break, because he was so young and shoudn’t have been working so hard in the first place.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:45 pm
During the period of time that this poem was written, childhood as we currently know it today was still a moderately new social invention. Children were not considered innocent of sin, and childhood was not a special phase of life set aside for play and learning. “Childhood” was born during the Industrial Revolution, as a protest against the severity of child labor outside farm communities in urban industrial settings. Preceding industrialization, children were considered small adults with adult responsibilities and sensibilities. Although this poem may in part be a condemnation of child labor under industrialism; it is in fact a buzz saw and not a hand-held axe that separates the boy from his hand. However, to me this poem is more a melancholy reminder of the fragile nature of human mortality. This is a poem that deals with the necessity to enjoy life while you have it, rather than spending too much of it working. Live life for today, plan for tomorrow. We all will someday be alive at one moment and dead the next moment, for reasons we cannot control. All will die, a thought unsettling to those who take excellent care of their bodies in unconscious pursuit of earned immortality. The cause or reason for each of our deaths may be considered fair or unfair, but only the survivors of the dead have the privilege of interpreting the death, and the death in this poem, as we, the living, return to our affairs.
Frost does an excellent job of depicting the beautiful Vermont Mountains in the background. He juxtaposes this with the “snarling” buzz saw, which can be taken to symbolize work. The boy cannot appreciate the beautiful nature around him and enjoy his life as a child because he must constantly work. Frost mentions how the boy would’ve appreciated being able to end a half hour early instead of spending his entire day working. Then, as he goes to finally squeeze some joy out of what remains of his day, he sustains a terrible accident and dies. His unexpected and tragic accident is symbolic of the briefness of life. The only thing we can be sure of in life is that life will end, and we must spend our time appreciating its beauty. The boy failed to do this. He desperately tries to cling to his remaining life, puffing his lips in and out, but it is too late. “Out, Out-”’s theme is to enjoy life, but to be cautious, as long as you can because carelessness can cause accidents and the loss of the most important things, which no one else will mourn. The boy could not enjoy the beautiful scenery; indeed he couldn’t even enjoy his supper. He got overly excited, and the saw had slipped. Without his hand he was worthless, so he let go of life, and everyone went about his business. Humans do not get a redo in life; there is only one life to live that must be lived to the fullest extent. The last sentence of the poem which states that “since they (the boys family and the doctor) were not the one dead, turned to their affairs” shows how although the boys death is tragic, people move on with their life.
The poem’s title, “Out, Out-” is referenced to the Shakespearean play Macbeth where the main character, Macbeth, speaks after he is told that his wife is dead.
“Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
that struts and frets his hour upon the stage
and then is heard no more”
These are words from William Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth uttered by Macbeth himself at the hearing of the death of his wife, Lady Macbeth. Macbeth has come to regard life as brief and meaningless, “signifying nothing,” and easily taken away. The life of the young boy in the poem too is certainly short, and snatched away from him in a split second. The poem brings out a several important issues such as the uncertainty of life, the inevitable acceptance of death and the unpredictability of the future. Both Lady Macbeth’s death and the death of the young boy from Frost’s poem are terrible 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.
Frost epitomizes the uncertainty and the brevity of life through the boy, the “big boy” who “did a man’s work” showing how age does not matter to death and how life can taken away within the blink of an eye from the youngest of persons. He show how fragile one’s life is that within a split-second there could be “nothing to build on”. The people in the poem were taking a pragmatic approach to the situation by persevering in the inevitability of a harsh reality, as death is something that cannot be altered. Also, Frost does an excellent job of depicting the beautiful Vermont Mountains in the background. He juxtaposes this with the “snarling” buzz saw, which can be taken to symbolize work. The boy cannot appreciate the beautiful nature around him and enjoy his life as a child because he must work. Frost mentions how the boy would’ve appreciated being able to end a half hour early and how the boy wasted his day working. Then, as he goes to finally squeeze some joy out of what remains of his day, he sustains a terrible accident and dies. His unexpected and tragic accident is symbolic of the briefness of life. The only thing we can be sure of in life is that life will end, and we must spend our time appreciating its beauty. The boy failed to do this. He desperately tries to cling to his remaining life, puffing his lips in and out, but it is too late. We do not get a redo in life. Tragic as his accident is, people fail to learn from it, and they simply move on. Carpe Diem. Seize the Day.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:50 pm
The poem Out, Out written by Robert Frost emits a quiet yet powerful message to its readers. This piece of literature is not overly dramatic yet the emotions behind the words do not lack in intensity. It cleverly implies a wise piece of advice in an ominous method, allowing the message to leave a strong, sentimental impact. The life of these Vermont woodcutters seems grueling and demanding on its own. The workers are so concentrated hat only a select few even dare to lift their eyes from their work and appreciate the beautiful natural scenery of the mountains surrounding them. Their lives are completely consumed by the monotonous routine of sawing day after day. The woodcutter population appears to be very isolated, confined to their own little world of saws and wood. They lack the experiences one would normally be exposed to in a globalized setting, one in which you would meet a variety of people and cultures.
In a way, the confined lives of the woodcutters parallels the lost childhoods Frost alludes to in the poem. The boy in the poem, in addition to this worldly isolation, does not get the chance to experience a full childhood. As the poem states, “doing a man’s work, though a child at heart”. Clearly, this child was immediately placed in a adult setting, forcing to assimilate and mature faster than he normally would, losing those prime years for fun and careless freedom.
References to a lost life permeate the poem, for example in line 21, it states “to keep the life from spilling.” The boy was slowly losing his chance at a childhood and the time to make it up was gradually spilling through his fingers. Now, as if realistically coming true, he was witnessing the actual draining of his own blood. That blood could have easily represented his chilhood, slowly slipping away from him. The poem shows regret for not offering this necessary personal time, stating “Call it a day, i wish they might have said to please the boy by giving him the half hour.” This half hour would’ve been a welcoming break from his incessant work.
In the end, those that at first came to help the boy, including the sister and the doctor, didn’t give him a second glance after he was pronounced dead. “And they, since they were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.” An awful tragedy has just occured and they hardly flinch. These people are confined to their own worlds as well, just as the woodcutters are, only concerned with the events in their own lives, disregarding those that do not directly impact them, such as the tragedy of the boy. Maybe the doctor and sister’s own lack of a childhood cuased thir unmoving and cold reaction. Maybe childhood innocence is vital for human development, as well as the emotions that come with it.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
My first main reaction to this poem was the theme of how life can be so easily disturbed. Just when you think your life is going right something catastrophic happens to change that path in a different direction. The poem starts off as describing the peaceful and serene atmosphere in Vermont. The young boy is working hard yet the routine is so consistent each and every day. Robert Frost, the author, immensely uses words to set the mood for the poem. Then, the climax of it is how suddenly the boy cuts himself with a saw. Frost blames it on the fact that when someone calls, “Supper”, the saw slips from his hand. Yet coincidence is simply an excuse. Everything happens for a reason, thus being that life has sudden changes. Anything can happen unexpectedly, it is just fate.
The poem then goes on as a dreary mood. At this point, most readers can interpret another theme the author is trying to portray. That children are growing up too quickly in reality these days. In this case, children are held responsible for jobs beyond their years. THis young boy has already died before he has probably reached the age of puberty. In war, men at age 18 have seen more death than some have seen in their whole lifetime. Technological advances have caused our society to have children grow up more quickly. Some seven year olds already cell phones. Presumably, some sixth graders are wearing makeup. It is just our generation and this poem clearly establishes this change.
Finally, in such short time it seems because poems tell a story, the boy dies. In generalization the author says, “And they, since they were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.” With different interpretations on who the plural “they” is, it shows how no one grieves over death. You just have to move on with your life. For every death, if everyone paused their life over it, nothing would get accomplished. People would mourn for their loved ones forever because death is always occurring. It is just a natural part of life; almost as equal as a baby being born. In Macbeth, we learn that life is hopeless and you just have to move on after a death. Robert Frost makes this very clear in the way he ends the poem. Overall, even though the poem starts very happy and ends very gloomy, the description and imagery was very thorough and meaningful.
April 17th, 2009 at 9:32 am
Robert Frost immediately intrigued the reader by using vivid imagery and descriptive ways to express the setting in his poem, “Out, Out”. Frost pulled in the reader by describing a sweet scented smell with the breeze and a saw that snarled and rattled in the air. In my opinion, I believe Frost purposely brought together the toughness of this saw and work with the beauty of the nature that surrounded it. Robert Frost also foreshadows events that will happen later on in the poem when the little boy says “Call it a day, I wish they might have said” which shows that something horrible might occur. Indeed, the boy later cuts off his hand and cries for it back. The boy knew he was a “big boy doing a man’s work, though a child at heart –“which is such a captivating line showing that this kid is just a child after all and also represents the toughness that is involved in child labor. It is also a significant line when the people reacted as though they “were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.” It is undeniably a controversial line but as I see it the people grieved the death of this kid but had to just move on in their lives and continue living.
-Mike Lee
April 17th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
The first time I read through Robert Frost’s “Out, Out” I was sort of appalled. I saw the poem as very brutal and pessimistic. In just a few lines a very innocent boy went from cutting wood to having and amputated hand and finally dead. I was questioning why Robert Frost abruptly killed this boy. Also the last line “ And they, since they were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.”, made me angry cause I couldn’t see how the people close to the boy could just go back to regular routine.
After a few more times of reading the poem my feeling changed drastically. I saw a lot of positive meaning in the poem. Robert Frost’s poem delved into the true meaning of life. He depicted it as short and futile. In the beginning of the poem he says, “Those that lifted eyes could count five mountain ranges one behind the other.” This shows that sometimes life is too short to even see the beauty that exists in the world.
I was also able to see another way to interpret Frost’s last line. Instead of being unaffectionate and cold it could also be seen as a lifelong lesson. This is that after tragedy strikes to only ways to cope are to get back to normal routine. Also this last line had great parallels with Macbeth’s speech after someone breaks the news about Lady Macbeth’s death to him. In this speech Macbeth uttered the famous quote “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow”. In this line he was also depicting how life is short and futile.
In line ten the writer is showing remorse or regret for the child. He is regretful that the child is being adult like and not a child. This is a very interesting topic that is prevalent a lot today. Many children in our world have numerous “adult” chores and they in a sense lose their childhood. I feel bad about this because to me a childhood is one of the most valuable times a human being could have. I believe that everyone should experience and cherish their childhood.
April 17th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Out,Out by Robert Frost, to me, is an excellent poem. He uses personification very well and brings to the saw to life. His use of vast numbers of adjectives help to paint a picture in the reader’s mind of the story line, too. The poem is simple enough to understand but still keeps you wondering. For example, the poem ends by saying “And since they were not the ones dead, they turned to their affairs.” I think this line could be interpreted many different ways and leaves you wondering about the poets feeling toward the family and friends of the deceased boy. You could think of it as him being spiteful toward the family and friends for getting over the death so quickly or it just could simply be showing that grief doesn’t last forever. I also think that the candle is very symbolic in the poem. It symbolizes the boys life (the flame), his death (extinguishing the flame), and how everyone moved on so quickly (the same way people don’t neccesarily notice and candle being extinguished) .
Most importantly, I think this poem was written to emphasis how easily a young life can be lost. I think if their is anything to get out of this poem its to enjoy life because it can be extinguished, like a candle, quickly, with ease, and without many people noticing.
April 17th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
The poem Out Out by Robert Frost describes a boy who is thrust into a world where he no longer can act like a child. He is forced by his family to do hard tasks. He lives day by day living his boring life while other children his age get to go out and have fun, play around. He needs a few minutes that no one ever gives him to stay a kid. His sisters didn’t even care that much that he was forced to do all that labor. No one really cares until a person is truly gone. He never got a chance to let go and just be carefree. Little boys really crave that chance.
His sister, also working, went on as if it was a regular day. They called “supper” and the little boy saw seemed to be moved by magic. He moved the saw up to his hand and cut it off. He didn’t seem to care for that matter, he didn’t cry or shout out in pain. He just was in a giddy mood because he couldn’t have possibly felt his hand being cut off. Once his sisters called for the doctor to come, the little boy cared more about losing his poor hand. He begged his sisters to tell the doctor to make sure his hand wasn’t cut off. While the blood was pouring out of his hand, he slowly fell into death. The doctor used amnesia to try to dull the pain, but there was no use.
Yet his family and the doctor continue to live with their lives, as if that one life wasn’t worth anything. Even if the one you love dies, you have other responsibilities in the world. The little boy was soon forgotten in their hectic schedules.
April 17th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
The poem, “Out, Out”, by Robert Frost is a very well written poem that really makes the reader intrigued as into what the poem is about. It starts off by using imagery to describe the scene, almost as if you yourself were actually there. It uses onomatopoeia to describe the sounds and it feels like you can actually hear it yourself and really get the feeling of being where the narrator is in the poem, as if it were actually you. Then it goes into the narrator’s feelings and about her regrets for not telling him to stop working. It really makes you feel like you are in the narrator’s position and actually thinking these thoughts. This gets you even more involved in the poem and you want to keep reading to see what happens. Then it goes into what’s actually happening, and you find out that the boy is being called in for dinner. The author uses personificaton to bring the saw to life and you can just picture it jumping around and going. Then you can hear the boy’s laugh before he realizes what happened and you see him losing consciousness as he loses blood. As the poem comes to an end, you start feeling sad, as if you were the narrator.
In this poem Robert Frost does a really good job bringing the poem to life. You can feel as if you were the narrotor and were experiencing this whole thing and it intrigues you. It draws you in, because you want to know what happens next since it almost feels like this is your life that you’re living at the moment.
April 17th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Robert Frost writes a tragedy in his poem, “Out, Out”. There have been a variety of ways that people have interpreted the tragedy: the death of a child, the cruelness of nature, or the consequences of a forced maturity. Just some to name a few.
But what I feel is more important than the story he tells, is the portrait of the world that he paints. Yes. This is how the world works. This is life. Or death. Or both. And there is nothing we can do to change it.
What I mean is that people do die. People have died, and people will die. Some, like the boy in the poem, die under the most unexpected circumstances, and to us they seem unbearably unfair. But then, when has it ever been fair? Who admits that the death of a loved one was entirely right? No matter how “just” conditions may seem, if the person was truly loved, then there will always be a pain in someone’s heart at their departure, a wanting to hold them again. Maybe just one more time.
And yet the world still refuses to let this happen. I think it’s because it has its own sense of justice. You see, generally when something dies in a balanced ecosystem, its body decomposes, providing nourishment for the surrounding area and organisms. In this way nature makes death imperative, in order to give way to new life. So in a sense, to return life to a body, would mean taking some away from everything else. And this in itself is an injustice.
Suddenly, our first injustice is almost righted with another injustice. Almost. The pain is still there, and it will continue to sear our hearts, maybe forever. But Frost, in the last lines of the poem, recites what everyone else does following the boy’s death:
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.
If taken literally, their sentiment is sparing, and cold at best. They disregard the boy’s passing, and simply continue what they were doing before. But a certain wisdom tells us that we do the same thing when our loved ones go. And I doubt that either we or the characters in the poem do it without emotion. Actually, the narrator implies feelings of regret and confusion towards the incident throughout the piece. But still, they go on with their lives. Eventually. The hard truth is that we all must move past deaths, no matter how much they shake our foundations. Otherwise, we, too, will perish.
Against the cold, sickening truth of death, we are powerless. As a species, or a society, or as individuals, we cannot stop death from happening. Doing so is a crime against nature, and the world itself. Against death, we can do nothing, but bear the agonizing pain that its chosen ones cannot feel. We miss them. We feel for them. And for ourselves. The heavy burden in our hearts is near impossible to contain, and it has driven more than enough people mad. But in the end, we have to accept it. We have to live with it. And not just breathe, but live. Experience life itself. That despite the ugliness the world can give us, there is somehow still so much beauty that it offers as well. In a way, it’s like it was given to us by their passing.
So yes. This is life. We are powerless over its twists and turns. We can barely control anything about how it goes, and its destination is out of our hands. And yet. Even if we could change it, we probably shouldn’t.
**And indeed, the title of the poem is from William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, another tragedy. In the scene in which the titular character recites the lines from which it originates, he has just learned of his wife’s death and is mourning. However, he quickly has to move past it, in order to try and survive himself and continue with his affairs (i.e. defending his castle and his crown).
April 17th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
The saw was described as snarling and rattling, and also as leaping out at the boy’s hand. The poet uses these descriptions to give the saw human traits and also made the saw seem threatening and malicious. Near the end of his work, the saw “attacks”, cutting off the boy’s hand and causing a serious injury. By the time the doctors arrive, it is almost too late and dies soon after. His family, however, is portrayed as cold when they just turn back to their affairs.
This poem tells the story of a boy worked to death, killed by his own tool. This shows the cruel reality of what is happening in some nations, where young children are forced to work instead of being allowed to go out and play with friends. Even though these children have supposedly been taught how to operate their machinery, it is impossible for the mind of a young child to stay completely focused on work for such a long period of time. In the poem, the boy had worked the whole day, but in the last moments had a lapse of concentration which led to a deadly mistake.
In addition, the large work load put on a child can lead to nothing less than a worker robot, in that he did not even realize that he would die from the accident, but was only concerned about keeping his hand. He was just a boy, doing a man’s work that kept him from being a kid. Even though children are often told to “act their age” this was an example of someone who was not allowed to do so, and was forced to act as a man.
Later, when the doctors came, they saw him die, but the family just turned to their affairs after it was all done. This may seem cold, but it is necessary for a family to move on eventually after the death of a loved one, since they are still alive and have things to accomplish with life. Those who are not able to move on after such a tragedy are sure to follow their loved ones, if they can not function in their daily lives normally. For this boy, work had taken over his entire life, but in the end it finally took away his life.
Dale Zhang
April 17th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
Robert Frost’s poem, “Out, Out” is a poem that demonstrates a theme of life if fragile. In the poem, a boy is working with a saw, cutting a piece of wood, in the Vermont mountains. The job that the boy is working on, without a doubt, should be a man’s job, so the child can go out, play, and have fun, like the typical everyday child. However, an accident happens while not paying attention to the saw, and the boy deeply cuts his hand with the saw. In the end of the poem, the boy ends up dying, which shows that every decision you make, or anything you do, you must pay attention and recognize the possible consequences of not realizing what you are doing. When you are using a sharp object, you should always be focused on that object so that you, or no one around you gets severely injured. At such a young age, the boy did not know this, which is why a man should have been performing the job he was working on.
In the beginning of the Poem, Frost uses imagery of sight, smell, and sound. In lines one through six, Frost uses imagery by saying “The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard; Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it; Five mountain ranges one behind the other.” Those three lines help the poem’s readers visualize the setting in great detail. The verbs that Frost used to describe the buzz saw gives descriptions, as if the saw was a wild animal. “Snarled” can be an angry dog, a wolve, or a coyote, and the other word, “Rattled”, describes the saw as if it were a snake.
Overall, the fatality would have never happened if a boy was not doing a man’s work. Boys, especially children, like to go outside, play around, and have fun. Those young boys should always have a chance to enjoy their lives at one point in their lives, and that does not mean putting them to work at a young age. However, if a family feels that their young children need to be put to work, they should not have a dangerous job, and the job should be quick and simple, not a long, hard-working task.
April 17th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
A few minutes can make all the difference in the world. An extra second on the shotclock, an extra minute on the test proctor’s watch, or a screech to a halt at a yellow light can alter lives in ways unimaginable. In the poem “Out, Out” by Robert Frost, a young boy’s life is tragically cut short by the deadly fangs of a snarling saw. Incidentally, if the boy had been let off work just half and hour earlier to enjoy his developing childhood and play free of obligation, his life would have been spared.
Although it is true that a humans future is greatly dependent on the earlier stages of development, children should be given children time. Young and weak adolescents are simply not fit to work on heavy duty labor or with hazardous tools. In addition, the both the young mind and body cherish the few moments that they get to relax and relieve themselves from physical or emotional strain. Just half and hour, as supported by Robert Frost, provides sufficient time for a youngster to unwind and disregard the hardships of life, leading to less stress and better mental development.
The child in the poem’s initial reaction to his severed hand is noticeably adverse to suspected. Emanating a “rueful laugh,” the boy proceeds to tell his sister to not allow the doctor to hack his hand off. However, the dramatic shock and searing yet unfelt pain can explain the phenomenon; the child was simply too dumbstruck to understand the severity of the situation.
Even more surprising is the reaction of loved ones, presumably family members, friends, and coworkers in the yard. The poem states, “Since they were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.” Surprisingly, this poem makes no mention of any remorse or time of condolence; the family members effectively ignored the death of the child and resumed living their lives. Although this was written in a different time period, where the loss of a loved one was more common due to the nature of occupation and the average lifestyle, mourning for the loss of such a young and capable boy would be nothing short of expected. Instead, Frost makes it seem as though the death made no impact on friends on family, who, because they were alive and well, turned back to their affairs. This is almost the kind of attitude found in soldiers on the front, as depicted by Remarque in All Quiet on the Western Front. In times of great loss, men simply cannot spend time mourning for loss for sake of keeping their sanity. If soldiers cannot withstand the bombardments, heavy artillery fire, and seemingly endless and visible destruction, surviving the war would be an impossibility. Perhaps this was the attitude assumed by many callous souls of this time and setting.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Out, Out by Robert Frost. It is illustrated with excellent composition and portrays many important themes of society. Also, it hides several messages of the author and his perspective on people and actions. Also, Frost excellently shows that just 30 minutes given to children can save lives, both physically and figuratively. At first glance, this poem may just seem like the reporting of a death, but really has several hidden themes and motifs.
April 17th, 2009 at 9:04 pm
In Robert Frost’s poem Out, Out , a hard-working farmboy accidentally cuts his hand off when, his sister told him supper was ready. The boy lost focus for just a split second. As a result from the accident, the poor boy died from shock. His family grieved for their lost, but immediately moved on.
In Out, Out, Frost incorporates many literary themes such as personification of deadly tools, the setting of the story, and aphorisms of a working-class family. Frost describes the background as a mountainous, breezy, Vermont day. Throughout the whole story, I was able to visualize the scene. In addition, Frost does an excellent job of describing the saw. The saw was like a voracious animal, a dog or a snake, hissing, snarling, and rattling. The saw became the antagonist, and I became terrified of it. Furthermore, Frost talks about the life of a working family. The boy was trying to help his family out by doing a job that might have been too big for him. Life for American farm workers was tough in the early 20th century. The boy must have felt like it was his duty to help bring in some money to support his family. Unfortunately, his overzealous in his desire to help his family, killed him.
Several significant themes are also mentioned. The Vermont atmosphere was beautiful. There was a slight breeze, the soothing smell of plants, and rolling mountains in the background. However, the farmboy and the rest of his family are too occupied with work to admire their surroundings. His sister comes outside just to tell him that supper is ready. She isn’t concerned about the scenery. This shows that life in the early 20th century was stressful, and people didn’t have time to appreciate beauty. Frost also talks about how the family copes with the loss of their son. While they are sad for a while, they learn to move on and not to linger around the death. Life goes on, and if they don’t move along, then they won’t survive. This point gives meaning to the title. Out, Out refers to Shakespeare’s, Macbeth’s belief about life. Macbeth said, “Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more.” Macbeth is describing how life is breif and pointless. The life of the boy was short-lived, and stolen from him by a careless mistake.
I like Out, Out. Frost is able to share many important themes of daily life. However, I disagree with Frost’s intake on life. While life can be brittle, and crushed easily, I think it is wrong to consider living “meaningless” and “pointless”. People accomplish arduous tasks daily that make the lives for other people easier. That is making a difference and makes living worth it. It was a shame that the boy lived a brief life. Life is so fragile, and can be taken away in a fraction of a second. I also enjoyed reading about the Vermont afternoon, and the details Frost used for the buzz saw. They painted a vivid scene in my head that I will remember for a while.
April 17th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
“Out, Out” by Robert Frost is a very sad and dark poem. The feeling is first conveyed with Frost’s use of personification in the first line of the poem, in which he uses the words “snarled and rattled” to describe the saw. These words set a dangerous and almost ominous feeling at the beginning of the poem. The events of the poem also make the poem depressing. A young boy doing the work of a man is the center of this poem. When supper is ready, he for some reason gets his hand cut by the saw. This accident turns out to be fatal. However, after he dies he is mourned only for a short time before everyone simply continues on with their lives.
In the last two lines of the poem, Frost presents the point that after a friend or family member dies, everyone will eventually move on with their lives. I agree with Frost’s point because it is in fact true that people usually only mourn a death for a brief time. Although life goes on, the memory of the one who died would still be in everyone’s hearts.
This poem also shows how unexpectedly a life can be taken away. A young boy who has been doing the work of an adult since he was able to died before he even got to enjoy life. Life may seem as it last forever, but this poem depicts that it really goes by quickly. The narrator of the poem also implies that those working, such as the young boy, never really enjoyed life. He does with the line “And from there those that lifted eyes…” I realized that I must enjoy life because it goes by so fast. This illustration of a brief life coincides with Macbeth’s thoughts on death.
In Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, just like the young boy in “Out, Out”, dies without warning. The line “Out, out, brief candle!” from Macbeth shows how a life can go away as quickly as a candle is blown out. Both “Out, Out” and Macbeth emphasize that life is brief and that death can come at anytime. Macbeth’s monologue also says that life is meaningless. This same theme appears in the poem as the young boy never got to take pleasure in the scenery and never got to even take off work half and hour early. He basically never got the chance to simply be a child. “Out, Out” and Macbeth both describe life as short and futile. They both also show that one can only grieve the death of loved one for so long before they must move on with life. This poem helped me realize that I should make the most of life because it can end in a flash without any warning.
April 17th, 2009 at 10:12 pm
After I read this poem, it gave me a sense of sadness and regret. The boy described in the poem was one that took on the work of a grown man, very diligent and hardworking. The way he died was too unfair, because he has not done anything wrong in his life. All he wanted was a simple life, and couldn’t even live to reap the benefits of it. The poem shows how unfair the world is, because even the good and pure die unmercifully too.
The language of the poem is very descriptive and vivid. In the first few lines of the poem, the setting is set, giving off a sense of fear from the saw. It seems to be alive, the way it “snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled.” The poet exaggerates the frightening potential of the saw to first describe the type of dangerous work the boy has to go through everyday, and second foreshadow his fate. Because the details of the scenery and the weather that day are so vivid, I can almost imagine it in my head, seeing the event as it occurred, hearing his cry of pain, and feeling the pain of his family members.
My favorite part of the poem was when the boy asked his sister not to let the doctors cut off his hand. It shows how diligent he is, because he needs that hand for future work. It also shows that the boy is very naive, because all he cares about is his hand, not realizing that his life was in danger the whole time.
April 17th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
This poem by Robert Frost describes the death of an innocent at heart, corrupted by the harsh realities of life. In the poem, the boy is young and innocent, but obliged to work, cutting wood rather than playing childhood games. He’s family probably isn’t very wealthy because the boy acts like he’s worked for a very long time. He has to, in fact, work all day, until his sister calls him to supper. His sister also has to work because she’s wearing an apron. He doesn’t enjoy working because it says “To please the boy by giving him the half hour. That a boy counts so much when saved from work” A simple half an hour made the boy happy, which shows how long and miserable hours he has to work. This boy is innocent, and forced to mature quickly due to the realities of society. Money, shelter…etc. are all reasons why this boy would be working.
When he’s in an accident involving a saw cutting off his hand, it shows what a big mistake it is to let children handle such “grown-up” equipment. His innocence is described when he sees his hand “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 was spoiled” The boy is confused by all the blood he sees coming from him hand. He’s so disoriented that he doesn’t even realize that he doesn’t have a hand anymore. Soon after, the boy dies and his family members watched as he breathed his last breaths. The boy was young and life was short for him. It’s a reality check that you don’t have to be 80 to die. You can die young , and there isn’t anything you can do about it.
But besides innocence, this poem is mainly about life and death. “And they, since they were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.” The last line describes the continuance of life after death and how even though it’s tragic, time waits for no one and you eventually move on from death. For the boy there was “no more to build on” so they continued on with their work, something the boy sacrificed, unnecessarily for. This poem was written as an allusion to Shakespeare’s Macbeth. When Lady Macbeth commits suicide, Macbeth is in the midst of preparing for war. He comments on her death, and is saddened but moves on, fairly quickly. He compares her death to a candle, easily being blown out. “out, out brief candle” and describes life as meaningless and fleeting. In Out, Out the boy dies swiftly “They listened to his heart. Little – less – nothing! – and that ended it.” And in the next line, his family moves on and goes back to their daily works.
I think that this poem was used as a “reality checker” for many people. It was to tell them that they should live their lives to their fullest, and even though they might think it’ll blow out like a candle, they should still shine as bright as they can. And to also move on because there are so many things to be done other than linger on thoughts of death.
April 17th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
It has always been hard for me to comprehend any meaning in freeform poetry (well, anything that doesn’t rhyme), since the styles vary from sentence-long motifs (Such as, most notably, William Carlos Williams’ “The Red Wheelbarrow” [So much depends/upon/a red wheel/barrow/glazed with rain/water/beside/the white/chickens.]) to entire epics (Homer’s “The Odyssey”). But what I’ve noticed in the bulk of the poems is that they are very vague descriptions that represent an entire story, so that the meaning is open-ended and you can connect to it. Or whatever. What’s different about “Out, Out” is that it’s an entire story that represents a vague description of innocence and cherishing childhood.
Most freeform poems are made up of descriptions of the five senses or the feelings that were experienced in one moment in time. For example, take “The Red Wheelbarrow.” Red barrow, with water on it, next to some chickens. Short, sweet, simple, and very general. But the story behind it was some complex ordeal involving a hospital room and a young boy or something along those lines. The poems are short but represent something much lengthier. But in the case of “Out, Out” we have a rather lengthy poem in the style of a short story that represents a short line of emotions that are generally felt by people. It’s the opposite of a normal freeform poem.
As I mentioned, I don’t understand this style of poetry. I feel it is something that only the person who wrote it can really comprehend, and when I read the poetry, I am well aware of this fact. This makes it hard for me to connect the poem to anything at all and leaves me neutral with the piece. “Out, Out” confused me a little, because of the style of writing used by Frost. If the indentations were to be removed, the poem could easily be read as a story. I am having a hard time understanding how skipping a few lines changes the genre completely from story to poem, or whether it changes the genre at all.
Contrarily, I think Frost’s method of going against the grain, where he puts the emotion in the story instead of vice versa makes me admire this poem. At first I did not see any deeper meaning, but once explained to me I realized the poem was about a boy who lost his life because he was treated like an adult, and was doing an adult’s work rather than playing like the kid he is. Once I began to understand the poem, I liked the deeper meaning. But the gruesome descriptions in the actual poem (”As he swung toward them holding up the hand…”) turned me off quite a bit, and in the end the pros and cons balance each other out. And it is for that reason that I am completely neutral on the matter of this poem.
April 17th, 2009 at 10:44 pm
Maybe all the “man’s work” is not needed. Maybe it just makes children look occupied. Maybe it serves as a strategy of a ‘good teacher,’ or maybe it’s completely rediculous. At young ages, children seek learning ‘hands-on,’ or through experience. They need to discover what the world beholds themselves, with critical, yet limited, instruction that furthers this task. Children aspire to explore their vast worlds, but are sometimes limited by factors that cause them to be bound to a “man’s work.” In Robert Frost’s poem, “Out, out” the young boy’s desire for his half hour of play signifies that children need to have some moments of a carefree childhood. They cannot be restrained by excessive work, because at young ages, they are still unaware of everything surrounding them and cannot handle such large workloads. The young boy in Frost’s poem is distracted from sawing. He is cut by the saw, sending his blood “spilling” out, leading to an unfortunate death. At the end of the play, readers understand that his family “turned to their affairs.” They kept living despite his death. However, this is a contradictory statement because it creates a distinction of character. Should the family have grieved more over his death or was it best to return back to reality and keep living? As described in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Macbeth describes the death of Lady Macbeth as being bound to occur. Shakespeare includes the line “out, out” to depict how Macbeth feels about the meaning of life- nothing. Plainly stated, life continues. Therefore, because life continues, the boy’s death is but one obstacle in his family’s life. Soon enough, the family will recover from this tragedy and return back to their own affairs.
Ellen Gamerman of The Wall Street Journal questions, “What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?” After sparking attention after their striking performance on the Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA, research began to uncover the truth behind this accomplishment, an accomplishment when compared to the United States, seems backwards in the steps needed to achieve it. “Finnish educators believe they get better overall results by concentrating on weaker students rather than by pushing gifted students ahead of everyone else. The idea is that bright students can help average ones without harming their own progress.” Therefore, rather than the need to push, the need for more work for the ‘gifted’ students and the pressure to be accepted into the best universities, Finnish students turn to more ‘productive’ means of carrying on their lives. For example children are much more self-reliant. With seven year olds carrying around cell phones and boarding public buses by themselves, Finns develop independence, a quality necessary in maturity.
In comparison, rather than boxing the young boy into doing more and more, just let him be. Let him live. There is no need to disrupt the building of a child with ‘fussy’ or ‘busy’ work that is redundant. Personally, I can concur with Gamerman. My mother was born and raised in Finland, and I can draw lineages to Gamerman’s points. My mother is a very diligent worker, someone who is constantly pushing. Also, she never wastes time. She never has a set, hour by hour plan, but uses her common sense to figure her day out. Not to say this is entirely healthy, but the motivation that some people endure is remarkable. As a result, their productivity levels boom. Not just mass production, but they retain an incredible capacity of knowledge.
All in all, the answer(s) are no. No, mounds of work does not enhance a student, unless it is constructive for their understanding. Students need helpful exercises, no ‘fluff’ included. Nevertheless, as Shakespeare has pointed out, life continues. Whether it’s the life of a Finnish student or an American Student, both will end up pushing daisies, but the vital aspect is the journey they took there. A learned journey, or a forced journey.
Excerpt from Macbeth Act V scene v
There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle.
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.
“What Makes Finnish Kids so Smart?”http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB120425355065601997.html
April 17th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
The poem “Out Out” by Robert Frost is a prime example in which his use of metaphors, personification, and variation creates a well rounded poem. The narrator starts off with the personification of a common work item – the saw. By using descriptive imagery, the narrator describes the saw as snarling and rattling. Suddenly though, the narrator changes gear, describing the vivid and tranquil Vermont scenery in the background. In just a few lines, two opposite sides of the spectrum, nature and industry, are crashed together. As quickly as the first transgression, the setting verves back to the harsh and violent industrial sense.
A person is introduced, working with the saw. But, it is just a young boy, who wants and waits for brief respite from his long day of work. As the saw continued to work as if the day could never end, the day itself really was beginning to wane. With just a few moments to supper though, a young boy, given the work of a grown man, was hit with a misfortune. Maybe in the boy’s excitement, or of the saw’s own accord, but no matter the ambiguous reason, the saw “leaped” from the boy’s hand. And even though the boy probably caused the saw to fly, the saw met and cut the hand. So severe was the wound that it was fatal. He knew at first that his hand was cut, but caught by surprise, he let out a “rueful laugh.” Moments later when his sister called out for him, he begged her to let the doctor keep his hand. It is evident that by his pleading, he treasured his life, and even in his last moments of life, he was frightened. That is to be expected, since he was all but a child doing a man’s dangerous work. When the doctor came, his hand was already gone, and instants later, his pulse disappeared. Even though the narrator did not explicitly state the boy’s death, it is inferred with the imagery provided.
The on watchers believed that a child’s death could not be possible, but they did not realize that a life can leave swiftly, without a moment’s notice. To some, a life may seem like forever, but in reality, it isn’t. Most people do not realize how short a life can be until a tragic call awakens them. Because the child was so young, he wasn’t even able to enjoy the simpleness of life. As stated in the beginning of the poem, the scene was beautifully described but the narrator also stated “And from there those that lifted eyes…” Therefore, this implied that even though the setting was inspiring, those that were working never had the time or interest to gaze out.
In the last two lines of the poem, Frost emphasizes a key point of human nature. He points out that despite the fact that someone did die, close members and family would still move on with their life since they were not the ones that died. Life would still continue without the person and even though the memory would still be ingrained, slowly over time, the importance and relevance would soon lessen over time.
The poem is an allusion to the scene in Macbeth where Macbeth laments the death of his wife, Lady Macbeth. He utilizes a simile comparing her death to the blowing out of a candle with this line, “Out, out, brief candle!.” Comparatively, the death of Lady Macbeth and the boy in the poem are both tragedies that were not foreseen. By comparing their deaths to a candle, it is representing that a human’s life is fleeting and that death happens just as quickly as the blowing out of a candle. Another line in Macbeth, “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player; That struts and frets his hour upon the stage; And then is heard no more: it is a tale; Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury; Signifying nothing,” also represents how Macbeth continued with the fight for his candle while the boy’s family and doctor moved on with their personal affairs. When Macbeth made that statement, he was describing life as meaningless and brief. No matter who the death, others will continue to move on and life will still happen.
April 17th, 2009 at 11:10 pm
Robert Frost’s poem “Out out” is a narrative poem that discusses how death and how life must go on. The poem is about a boy who is working on a farm with other older men. As he begins working he gets lost in his own thoughts until his sister calls for everyone to come in for supper. This disruption causes him to cut his hand with the buzz-saw. The blood seeps out of his hand and he is taken to the hospital. The doctors amputated his hand and did the best that they could, but in the end the boy does die and everyone goes back to their normal life right after the death. I think that the reason why Robert Frost wrote this poem was to show the reader how quickly life goes and how quickly life must continue. This poem also stresses the sacredness of childhood. Robert Frost show the reader how precious childhood can be and how deadly adulthood can be.
Frost does a very fine job in showing the reader how death and life relate. He tells us that although a death may have occurred, your life is still continuing. For example, it states “And they, since they were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.” The family goes right back to what they were doing moments after a family member has died. What Frost is trying to tell us is that just because one person has died and no longer lives, your life is still continuing and you must return to live it. The family members did not seem to care too much about the young boy because they had to resume their lives.
In addition, the poem “Out, out” is a soliloquy to the play “Macbeth” by William Shakespeare in two ways. The first way that the poem is a soliloquy is because the dialogue that the title of the poem is referring to is when Macbeth says “Out, out brief candle!” This line is said when Macbeth finds out that his wife has died and he is comparing her life to a candle, brief and meaningless. One of the themes of the poem is how quick and short life is and how meaninglessly we think of it. The second reason why the poem is a soliloquy is because of the way that Macbeth handled death. In the play Macbeth did not burst out in rage, tears, etc. when he killed someone, he just moved one with his life. Similarly, in the poem after the family member’s death the rest of the family just moves on with their lives as though nothing ever happened.
Lastly, one of the poem’s major themes is the attainment of manhood and how quickly it can occur. In the poem a young boy is out on the farm working with a dangerous saw. He is with other men who are more than double his age. The boy has become a man in half the time. Frost was stressing to the reader how quickly manhood can come and how short childhood really is. The boy eventually dies because of this rush to manhood. If he was given just thirty minutes more of childhood he could have lived. For instance, Frost says “To please the boy by giving him the half hour
that a boy counts so much when saved from work.” This is a similar theme that was expressed in Catcher in the Rye. In “Catcher in the Rye” Holden Caufield is trying to prevent all the innocent children in the world from falling into the corruption of adulthood. Frost was trying to show how much society encourages children to grow up when it is not their time.
In the poem “Out out” by Robert Frost there is a very intense awareness of death throughout the poem. Similarly in Macbeth, right from the start death becomes an evident theme. Although there may be other interpretations of the poem, what I got out of it was that once a death occurs life is still going on and you cannot pause time and mourn over a death you must continue your life. Frost makes this a very evident theme in the poem by showing that just moments after a death they were resuming their affairs. Another theme that I noticed in the poem was how precious childhood really is. If the boy had just had half of an hour more of childhood he would have lived and his lived would have been saved. Frost’s use of personification and metaphors created a narrative poem that expressed two major themes in society today.
April 17th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
“Out, Out” was written by a very talented poet, Robert Frost. In this poem, he used many important literary devices such as repetition, personification, use of imagery, and many more. From the title of the poem, the reader already has a sense of what the poem will be about, which is a great thing because it shows them if they will like the theme or not ahead of time and allows them to form opinions more easily. As the poem goes on, you begin to see how fragile life really is by hearing the story of a young boy, his death, and how those around him handle his passing away. Robert Frost uses personification to bring different inanimate objects to life, such as saying, in the first line, “The buzz saw snarled,” and also later in the poem, “the saw… leaped out at the boy’s hand.” These phrases both show human characteristics being applied to a buzz saw, which is personification. Frost does a great job describing details in the poem, giving readers a clear view in their mind. I feel that this is a very emotional poem, because death is always a sensitive and tricky subject, even in literary works. However, it is a very good poem.
April 18th, 2009 at 10:46 am
The poem “Out Out” by Robert Frost offers a broader perspective on the quality of human life. While people are usually caught up in their own issues, the narrator steps back and looks at the “bigger picture.” And he witnesses a tragedy, the death of a child. But rather than denying the horrifying event, or calling it unfair, he simply deems death inevitable. The poem says that human life is fleeting, and that a person should take time to savor the pleasantries of the world while he or she can. The theme of this poem can essentially be summed up with the phrase carpe diem meaning “seize the day.”
In the first few lines of the poem, the juxtaposition of nature and machine is introduced. The narrator takes care to give an in-depth description of the Vermont scenery, the beauty of the sunset over the mountain range and the sweet scent of the air. But also introduced is the buzz saw, whose industrial snarl contrasts the serenity of the scene. While the scenic view is clearly the more desirable of the two, the saw gets in the way of the workers appreciating nature. The poem says that the view was appreciated by “those that lifted their eyes,” but the problem is that no one did. The boy, so close to the end of the work day, slipped and cut off his hand. And it is clear in his struggle to live at the end, begging his sister to save his hand and puffing out his lips in an attempt to breathe, that he realizes just how short his life was and that he should not have been so focused on working. People are often too preoccupied with work or school to appreciate the truly important things in life. Frost’s poem conveys the message that since life is so brief, people should take the time to look more closely at love and beauty, rather than only focusing on work.
The poem also addresses the issue of ignorance through the boy’s family. Although they had just watched him die, they simply returned to their daily lives. There was “no more to build on,” no more work to do with the boy, so they just went back to work. While it is clear to the reader that the family had just witnessed first-hand, the inevitability of death and the need to appreciate life while able, the other characters in this poem do not see it. Needless to say, the doctor moved on to another patient without looking up at the sunset, and the sister went to finish making dinner without smelling the sweetness of the air. At any moment, they could suffer a fatal accident and no longer be able to enjoy the world around them, but because they do not see the fleeting nature of life, they will continue working.
This poem also offers an allusion to another work about the brevity of life, Shakespeare’s Macbeth. When speaking about the death of his wife, Macbeth says,
“Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
that struts and frets his hour upon the stage
and then is heard no more.” (Act V, sv)
He is comparing the duration of a human life to the flame on a candle, which could go out at any moment. He also compares life to a play, once a character has spent their brief amount of time on stage, they are no longer heard from. The narrator of “Out Out” and Macbeth are similar in that they have both accepted the fact that life is fleeting. However, while the narrator of the poem found new appreciation for life in this revelation, Macbeth seems to simply be resigned to the morose truth.
On the timeline of the existence of the world, a single human life would be represented by a speck. But time is relative, and the value of life should be measured in quality, not quantity. A person could live 25 truly happy years, where he appreciated life and lived each day to its fullest, or a person could live 100 miserable years, only focused on work. And in the end, the person with the shorter life was more satisfied.
April 18th, 2009 at 11:13 am
“Out Out” by Robert Frost
Rachel Brown, Mr. Kanach’s Period 4
This poem was extremely sad to read, as it emphasizes just how short life can be. To quickly summarize, the poem is about a young boy in Vermont who is a “boy doing a man’s work,” cutting timber with a buzz saw in Vermont. He gets excited when his sister calls him to dinner and accidentally cuts off his hand. The doctor makes him uncoonscious, and he dies. His life is so insignificant that the doctor, his sister, and all the people around him just move on with their lives and forget the boy ever existed.
The title seemed really familiar to me and somewhat random, but then I realized that it alludes to Macbeth’s soliloquy when Lady Macbeth commits suicide:
“To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
Macbeth is ranting about how life is but an insignificant flame that can be blown out all too easily. Life is so short, is it really worth living? This same theme is expressed in the poem. The boy never had the chance to enjoy the beautiful Vermont scenery, never got to get off work even a half hour early, never even got to enjoy his supper. His excitedness and a single moment of carelessness, when he cut off his hand, cost the boy his life. Without the boy’s hand, his life wasn’t worth living because he couldn’t perform his work, and his life was lost with no one to mourn for him.
April 18th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
The message of this poem is so small – yet described in a powerful fashion. I believe the purporse of this poem was to show readers how fast children are forced to grow up, and also, how much less significant a life is than expected.
In the poem “Out, out-” by Robert Frost, the story begins with a boy sawing a wood. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Suddenly, the boy’s sister distracts him by calling him for supper, and the boy cuts his hand with the saw. The injury was life-threatening, as Robert Frost describes that the boy is holding his hand as if to keep “life from spilling.” When the doctor arrives to the house, the boy screams in fear of the doctor taking his hand away. Suddenly, the boy dies. Then- nothing. What happened to the family? “since they were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.” Life went on.
One of the themes of this poem that hit me the most was the message that children are growing up too quickly. As Line 24 states: “Doing a man’s work, though a child at heart-” The reason why the boy suffered such a fatal injury was becaue he was inexperienced, yet forced into doing something beyond his years. Furthermore, the boy’s immaturity is revealed through his reaction to the injury. Inability to cope with the injury shows concerns that only a child would hold in his mind in such a situation. I believe children are forced into doing so much more than they can handle because life is too short to do things gradually. Which brings me to another point…
In response to his wife’s death, Macbeth utters a speech so harsh, yet so true. Comparing life to a mere play, Macbeth makes his point clear: the life of a person holds its value only until death. Just as a character’s significance lasts for the duration of their time on stage. Although many may argue that the death of a person is a major impact in one’s life, how long would you truly mourn for? Just as a child would react to ice cream falling off their cone and onto the ground, tears would shed, yet life would go on eventually. The poem does not depict how long it took for the boy’s family to return to their normal lives, the main point was that they DID, and the boy’s life no longer held much value. The abrubt ending also proves a good point: you can’t “fluff” death. Once someone has left the Earth, there is nothing that can reverse what happened. After reading the poem, I came to the realization that life is both vulnerable, short, and of little value to others. Vulnerable because it only takes a second to put an end to; short because there’s just “too much to do, yet so little time;” and of little value because although I can leave an imprint on this world (be it a scientific discovery, an invention, or maybe a role in theater), people will only recognize me for what I did, not who I was. People may value their friends or family, but they value their life more. Though the boy was in complete horror of the accident, the reaction of others towards his death was not as severe.
Even though I came to this realization, this does not mean that I view life as worthless. Which is why people are usually given the cliche encouragement to “be the best that they can be.” Life is short, but that’s why you make the most of it. I believe that the reason why Frost gave such a harsh message was to remind the audience not to dwell over death so obsessively, because a life is a life. You would feel sorrow over the death of a loved one, but the rest of the world wouldn’t.
April 18th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
I think “Out Out” by Robert Frost is a pretty depressing, even pessimistic poem. There is a lot that implies these ideas and connotations in the poem. The choice of the words snarled and rattled for the sound of the buzz saw, and their repeated use, impart a dark, wild feeling upon the reader. The scene Frost describes as the setting also helps to set a depressing mood. It is a boy alone in a solitary yard at sunset. Sunset is the end of the day, and is often used as a metaphor for the end of life, death. Of course another factor that may contribute to a dark atmosphere of the work would be the fact that the boy dies in the end. He bleeds to death while the doctor futilely tries to save him. Frost’s line in the end sums it up, “And they, as they were not the one dead, turned tot heir affairs.” The person dies and briefly he is mourned, but then simply forgotten as those who are still alive must continue their lives.
The poem’s meaning is very similar to that of the “Out, brief Candle” speech in Macbeth, from which it likely gets its name. In that speech, Shakespeare’s character Macbeth, after hearing about the news of his dead wife but being too hardened to death to react, describes life as brief and useless. All life is is a path to death and nothing really comes out of it. Frost’s poem similarly describes life showing that it is both short and futile. The boy in Frost’s poem who dies is described as “old enough to know, a big boy Doing a man’s work, though a child at heart-.” This shows that even though he had only lived a short while, the boy had advanced through the stages of life to the point where he was acting as an adult. This displays how quickly life goes by, making it difficult for one to really use his time well and achieve something. The boy’s death at this young age shows how short life often is, cut short by disease, accidents or even a saw. This image of a quick and short life agrees with the description that occurs in Macbeth.
The monologue in Macbeth also states that life is futile. Though we try, ultimately there is no point to life, nothing will be achieved, it is useless. Though it is not stated directly in Frost’s poem, futility is symbolized several times throughout the poem. First, after the boy cut his hand. “As he swung toward them holding up the hand Half in appeal, but half as if to keep The life from spilling.” The boy is futilely trying to stop the blood, and his life, from spilling out of his body. He begs his sister not to let the Doctor cut off his hand, but this is also futile as the saw has already partially or totally removed it from his arm. The Doctor uses anesthesia on the boy and tries to save him but in the end this is also futile because they only watch as the boy’s pulses slowly drops to nothing. The final show of futility is that the people who tried to save him simply move on once he has died. This shows that his life was unaccomplished; there was nothing in it worth dwelling on and mourning. This implies that all lives are like this and it is futile to even try to accomplish something during one’s life time. These examples show the poem’s agreement with Macbeth that life is futile and useless.
I agree with Frost’s last line in the poem. I think that people tend to simply move on after a loved one dies. However, I think this is the only choice they have and I don’t believe that life is futile. I think it is whatever we make of it and that many people have accomplished significant tasks in their lives which have affected the lives of many other people. In this way they do not just fade away but are remembered and had important lives.
April 19th, 2009 at 11:22 am
The poem “Out, Out” is interesting because of the use of personification of the saw. Frost uses the words snarled and rattled in the beginning of the poem to bring the saw to life. These words also show that the saw is fierce and eventually will inflict pain on the boy. Frost also is very descriptive when explaining the scenery. His descriptions of the mountain ranges and sunsets in Vermont allow the reader to picture the scene in his or her mind. Frost then begins to say that if only they had let the young boy end working early, then the horrible accident wouldn’t have happened. He foreshadows that something bad will happen to the boy. After the boy dies from loss of blood, the poem says, “And they, since they were not the one dead, turned to their affairs”. It seems to end on a harsh note saying that the boy’s family and friends immediately went back to whatever they were doing before the accident. However, I interpret it as after mourning for the boy and eventually accepting his death, his family went back to living their lives and moved on. “Out, Out” is an effective poem because of Robert Frost’s use of personification, vivid descriptions, and foreshadowing.
April 19th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
Sorry for posting this late, i put it on my Blog on time, but forgot to C&P it here…
Poetry is a lot of things. It is a companion to chicken vindaloo at 2 AM on a Friday. It is a bunch of words placed in a pattern. It, presumably, has a message. That, apparently, needs interpretation. So I will interpret it, while eating.
Robert Frost’s “Out Out-” is not about death. It is not about how humans “turn to their affairs” in a bout of supreme selfishness. It is not about doctors. It is not about hands or ether. It is not about a meter or a rhyme scheme. It is not about Vermont or nature. It is not about accidents. It is not a commentary on quality of life vs. quantity. And it is most certainly not about the personification of a saw that “snarls and rattles”.
It just isn’t.
The poem is, to some small extent, about growing up. It is not about being forced to grow up. It is about growing up. There is a difference.
If one feels the urge to delve distressingly deep into “Out Out-” they find something interesting. Adults are never mentioned until the boy cuts his hand. His mother does not cook or call the boy into dinner, his sister is given those enviable tasks. It is, perhaps, a stretch to say that the boy being cut by the saw is a purely symbolic act. That his dialogue is his attempt to stay young. That his death is his transition into adulthood. That is being a child with an adults jobs is completely normal and necessary. And it is, I believe, not much of a stretch to say that the narrator is slightly controlling (He does believe that the boy should be prevented from growing up).
Its rather simple really. It is not hard to realize that growing up is slightly more that getting older. It has to deal with responsibilities. So then it makes sense that growing up as a male you would have to, at some point, “[do] a man’s work, though a child at heart”. How else to mature? Understanding that the boy’s work is merely him growing up the buzz saw is, if I may be so…literary, the manifestation of the boy’s job and thus his fading youth and approaching adult hood.
Being cut by the saw would then have to be some penultimate experience to becoming an adult. The boy, it would seem, “gave” his hand to be cut by the saw, clearly indicating he wanted to be an adult. This explains his rueful laugh. Does change ever not leave a mark?
Up until now, his world has been a child’s world, filled only with his sister. He doesn’t want to grow up, per say, but who does? So the doctors, adults, come, and give him some ether. Ether was relatively new at the time of the writing of “Out, Out-”; it had been in use for about 50 years. At any rate, the boy enters a man’s world and leaves the boy’s world. And despite the boys metaphorical passage, and “death”, people return to their lives. Because growing up isn’t that big of an event, and “it goes on”.
It is of course completely possible that my interpretation is woefully incorrect. That “Out, Out-” is, in actuality, the harsh attitude of the world; towards youth and death. Or it could be that every person who has ever read this poem is wrong in their interpretations. The poem could, quite conceivably, simple deal with Frost’s fear of doctors, or saws, or saws that snarl and move. I would be quite scared if a saw snarled at me.
But, since literature is about how words change the reader, I am content in my interpretation. I am content with the possibilities there is no unifying theme to the poem. Or that its, in actuality, about how good Chicken Vindaloo tastes cold at 2:55 AM on a Friday (I can assure it taste quite good). The point is, perhaps we shouldn’t think so much about what poetry “says” and how it will affect us. It is possible that
Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
sounds better than it talks. That personification doesn’t matter. That “fail not our feast” just means “come to the feast”. Maybe we should just let poetry speak rather than say and let it affect us as it will. Poetry sounds good too. And too rhymes with vindaloo. True poetry.
Because colorless green ideas sleep furiously. They really do.
April 20th, 2009 at 11:50 am
The poem “Out, Out” by Robert Frost has a defined meaning and tells a story that so many other poems don’t. In this poem, a boy, who has worked a long and painful shift, is ready to go home for supper, but has a foul run in with a saw. This saw strikes his hand and creates a major cut. It turns out to be a fatal wound and the doctor can do nothing for him. But in the end, everyone, even his family, goes back to doing just what they were before; just as if nothing had happened.
Making the reader of a poem believe something is one thing, but creating a story that tells a message and makes a very excellent point is another. Robert Frost says that if the boy had even one half hour to just play and be a kid, this tragedy would never have occurred. Kids need to hold on to their childhood and not grow up too quickly. It says that he was “doing a man’s work, even though a child at heart.” If they work many hours and don’t get to enjoy their life as children, their adult lives will be even worse. Childhood is something you only have once, and you can never regain it, so children need ot sieze the moment and stay kids for as long as they can. If the saw had been put down 30 minutes earlier, it never would’ve had the opportunity to slice the boy’s hand. Instead he could’ve been home, eating supper with his mother and sister.
Along with play, Robert Frost also shows how the change from happiness to pure insanity can happen instantaniouly. The boy laughs when he is first cut, almost like he doesn’t believe it has happened. He was al excited to be going home and get off work, so he is in a great mood. Once he sees all of the blood, though, he cried to his sister to not let his hand be cut off, but it was too late. The saw had done its damage and there was nothing anyone could do about it. The changes in a persons mind can happen so quickly, and at any moment their life can flash before their very eyes.
After someone you know and love dies what do you do? Of course there is the sadness and the guilt, but after a while, everyone does the same thing. They all go back to their normal lives, almost like nothing had happened. It isn’t that humans want to forget or not care about a loved one, it’s that they must. If you don’t go on living your life, then there is no point for you to live any more. Grieving over a lost one is very difficult, but in the end we all have to make that decision to step back into our normal routines and abandon the lingering thoughts of misery. My great uncle just passed away recently so I know how tough it’s been. Even though I wasn’t that close to him, there was a large part of me that was saddened by his going. Of course I was upset and depressed, but life kept going on around me so I had to get right back into the flow and keep moving. That’s the only way a human can survive; it’s to go with the flow and stay on your track, no matter where life takes you.
Frost does one thing better than I have seen in any other piece of poetry. His use of imagery and the way he puts a picture into your mind just amazes me. Although we all know buzz saws are dangerous, he adds that it “snarled and rattles” which makes it sound even more intimidating. Also, saying that the saw seemed to leap out of the boy’s hand and then saying that the boy “must have given the hand” just tells the reader that it was an accident, but the boy is partially at fault for his own death. The most powerful image is the blood spilling from is arm. Frost says that it was life spilling from his arm and that just foreshadows the inevitable end for this young boy. The symbols incorporated into this work is truly an art that Robert Frost has mastered.
Putting all of these aspects together, “Out, Out”; is a great poem that tells a story. It keeps the reader involved with suspense as well as foreshadowing. Also, it teaches the reader some life lessons about childhood and how to lives their lives. Robert Frost’ poem makes a person think about their own lives and wonder what they can do to improve them. This great poem should be shared for generations to come because of its great story, lessons, and details which make it one of the best poems Frost has ever written.
April 20th, 2009 at 11:53 am
Upon reading Frost’s poem ‘Out, Out –‘, one finds oneself in a strange place somewhere between childhood and adulthood; or more specifically, at the end of childhood. The opening eight lines dramatically states the contrast between these two worlds. We find the adult work world intruded upon by the boy’s view of nature surrounding him:
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 eyes could count
Five mountain ranges one behind the other
Under the sunset far into Vermont.
And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,
It starts with the noise of the machine and than drifts away into the country landscape that the boy wishes to escape back into, but is brought back to the snarling and rattling of the cutting of the wood. This is the “load” the boy must bear to become an adult as defined by those around him. He only wants “the half hour’, and when his sister comes from the boy’s home the child and the machine seem to clash in that moment. At that moment the boy knew on some level that his life, the freedom of the child, was spilling out; for now he was old enough to do a man’s job. At this point it all seems spoiled to the boy for he is losing the child in his heart as he loses his hand. The mutilation of his hand represents the lose of the fun and joy of his childhood, that would now be unobtainable for him. This is seen when he tells his sister to not let the doctor cut his hand off for he does not want to admit and believe what has happened to him. He was losing his life and his child hood in that moment dramatically described by Frost in the following lines of the poem:
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.
Frost keeps the reader in suspense and wondering what will happen to the boy. In the beginning he states how the boy wishes not to have his hand cut off, which leaves you wondering if he cut it off or not. Then, it hits the reader as suddenly as the machine goes out of the boy’s control, that the hand was already gone. Next, the description of the doctor putting him in the dark of ether increases the suspense and fright of what is to come in the poem. Frost goes on to describe the people in the boy’s life in a disturbing way. This is clearly expressed when Frost refers to the man taking the boys pulse as the watcher of his pulse; leaving the reader in suspense as one reads how all listened to his heart as it became less and less, till it was no more. This part of the poem kept me in suspense and left me wondering if the boy was going to be live or not, until the heart stopped. Frost’s use of drama made me feel like I was right there in the poem by the boy’s side as he took his last breath. With the boy’s death the poem comes to an end, and end that many would say is cruel:
No more to build on there. And they, since they
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.
The family just continued on with what they were doing for they were not dead, and there was no more they could do with their child for he was dead and therefore useless. Frost does not show the family grieving and morning over there lose or feeling guilt for giving the boy this type of work to do. The meaning could be that in this materialistic world that we live in, once your dead you are no longer of any use to anyone. That you are measured your labor and not truly valued for anything beyond that.
Another meaning from the poem is that tragic things happen everyday and you need to learn how to deal with them and move on with your life. That grief and sorrow can drive one to the point where they can no longer function and live a normal life, but this is a very limited view of life that Frost seems to show by comparing the boy’s view with the adult world at the conclusion of the poem.
I believe that this poem was very powerful and I enjoyed it greatly. It had a couple different messages for me. One being that a child needs time to play for he won’t be a child forever and has his whole life to do the work of an adult. It also expressed to me the beauty of nature, and how by making a child do the work of an adult you put an enormous burden on the child by making them give up the freedom they enjoy with a view of life that is so one sided.
April 20th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
The first time I read this poem, the last line surprised me. I thought it was strange that the boy’s family seemed to care so little about his death and seemed to move on with little mourning. But then I thought about it and realized that the poet may have been trying to very directly send the message that moving on after the death of a loved one is necessary. If the parents and the sister hadn’t turned to their affairs, they may not have been able to live happily afterwards, and could have continued to mourn for the rest of their lives. The poet may have decided to be callous about the issue, or may have simply not mentioned mourning in the poem to get to the point he was trying to make. However sadness and regret caused by death aren’t completely absent from the poem and are shown when the narrator states that he wishes that the boy had been given a break, preventing his death. This line also relates to another theme, that letting children play and experience childhood is important. This made me wonder, if the boy was distracted enough while working to cut his hand on a buzz saw, should he have been made to work at all, let alone as long as an adult? I also thought about why the boy had to operate something as dangerous as a buzz saw instead of doing something potentially harmful, like carrying logs. The danger in invovled may be why the poet have ment when he said the boy was a child doing man’s work. I also felt that the fragility of life was shown in “Out, out…” Half an hour made a difference between life and death for the boy. A single cut became life threatening, and the lack of something as simple as first aid prevented the boy from being able to live.
April 21st, 2009 at 6:44 pm
“The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard.” reads the first line of the poem “Out, Out-” by Robert Frost. The first line giving the saw that is to lead to a tragedy human qualities. The connotation of the words “snarled and rattled” immediately tells you that the poem will incorporate the saw as the “bad guy.” And that it does. Personification is a technique that brings life to an object and also the piece it is in. In this case, it foreshadows what this poem will be about. The repetition of this line further in the poem increases the drama that is building. When the saw “leaps” it is the final line before the boy loses control of the saw and cuts his hand. This repetitive form of personifying the saw makes it seem like the enemy, and the boy the victim. Although he was controlling the saw, it gives it the appearance that the saw had a mind of its own and had been plotting this fatal event.
Although the personification of the saw was the most distinct aspect of the poem in my opinion, the part that caught my attention the most was the boy’s reaction and the author’s reaction. The boy, at first is in shock. His “rueful laugh” is his disbelief at the event as he watches his hand be cut off. Often times when something gruesome and painful happens, it seems unreal, which is clearly demonstrated in this poem. He tries to keep the “life from spilling” but little does he know that it is too late. His biggest concern is keeping his hand, which in a way is peaceful. Although it is in reality grim and horrendous, the boy died not worrying about death, but instead considering whether he would ever be able to throw a ball or swim across a lake again. The boy begs his sister not to let the doctor cut off his hand, even though it won’t be a question by the time the doctor arrives. It is too late. The author shows remorse on the other hand. He regrets that the boy hadn’t had a half hour to play, and that the boy was doing a man’s work cutting lumber to begin with. Had one person given him the okay to leave, the accident would have never happened. The boy would have returned to his home and family and continued on as normal. But no one did that, and it was a life shattering mistake.
When reading the poem, you do not anticipate the boy’s death. It is expected his hand will be amputated which will be tragic for him, but death isn’t questioned. However, when the doctor arrives, and takes his pulse, it slows to “Little- less- nothing!” As fast as he cut his hand, he is gone. However, the family moves on. The surprise of his death hits us unexpectedly, however the poem shows that the family moves on. The first time reading this poem, I was appauled at their nonchalance towards a family members death. However, the second time reading it, it occurred to me that “turning to their affairs” didn’t mean forgetting. The family would never forget their son, however they can’t stop their life when his ended. Doing that would end in their destruction. The only way to survive was to continue living.
April 21st, 2009 at 11:39 pm
The title comes from Macbeth when Macbeth finds out his wife died and we see how drained of emotion he has become. He says “Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more……signifying nothing.” This quote speaks of how short life is and how it is pointless, especially to morn a death. We are hardly even here and when we are gone life just keeps on going sowing how a single like has a basically no significance. This ties in quite nicely to the poem.
The first six lines show how the boy had to work, but was surrounded so many beautifully distracting sights that he was not able to take the time to take in or even notice. He was a boy and yet he could not enjoy this part of his life the way he was meant to. It was a normal day but a single careless mistake changed everything. Any one’s life turn down a completely different path- in this case death- in a split second. It was the smallest thing that caused the slip. “Supper ” is so generic and normal that the feeling of a normal day is even stronger. It makes it seem like it came out of nowhere. Accidents happen so fast that you never really know what actually happened and they almost seem like they could not possibly be your fault. This poem really blames the saw not the boy who let his hands slip.
The boy, trying ” to keep the life from spilling” can see the end and almost knows what is coming. Practically in a childish way he just tries to hold onto the life that his has. He had said, “Don’t let him cut my hand off-the doctor when he comes. Don’t let him, sister!” even though somewhere deep inside he does understand there is more than his hand at stake. “The hand was already gone.” It was no use, what was going to happen could not be stopped.The poem then refers to the doctor putting him in the “dark of ether” which means the upper regions of space or the heavens. In other words, the doctor could not save him and the boy had died. The last few lines show their reactions to the little boy’s death. No one could believe it and yet they just left and went right on with their lives after their stunned disbelief disappears. He made no difference, him or his death.
The line saying ” And they, since they were not the one dead turned to their affairs” quite interestingly enough ties back into Catcher in the Rye with how Holden Caulfield felt about Abby in the cemetery. We go and visit our dead but when it starts to leave, we can just run inside, unlike our loved ones who cannot escape and just get wet. The main message of this poem “Out Out” seems to be that everyone should live their lives to the fullest, enjoy if while they can and not grow up too fast. Both the boy and the sister, young as they were, they were also acting like adults, skipping right over childhood, which Holden would have been extremely upset about.The poem even says “Doing a man’s work, though a child at heart” highlighting how no matter what, children will yearn for a childhood. The people who grow up without a childhood often end up with problems when older if not dead.
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:42 am
The poem “Out, Out-” by Robert Frost portrays a realistic and pessimistic outlook on life. Personally, the message of human greed and selfishness was not as evident the first time I read the poem, but after I read it a few times the theme was clear. Living in an extremely cultured and sheltered society, I am not accustomed to the heartless people in the world, but as I am growing up, it is becoming increasingly eminent.
The first time I read through the poem “Out, Out” by Robert Frost, I could not grasp the actual meaning behind the words, because they were something I had completely not expected to read about. The lines
“As he swung toward then holding up the handHalf in appeal, but half as if to keepThe life from spilling.” had confused me because I did not think that in a poem about a young boy and his sister calling him for supper would conclude with him losing his hand and dying. After reading the poem again in class with my peers, I began to realize the true meaning to the poem. Frost had wanted the reader to pity a small, hardworking young boy and then read about his brutal death to teach his audience the cold, hard truth in society. The “hard truth” of society portrayed in the poem was when the boy was pronounced dead, his family members just turned back to their normal lives.
“And they, since theyWere not the one dead, turned to their affairs.” I personally felt that as moving as the poem was, Frost made it too negative. It was not necessary to kill off the young boy so suddenly. To make it even more upsetting, the family that made the boy work so hard barely grieved after his death. Some may think that it was for the better that the family moved on with their lives, but I disagree. Their son had just died a horrible and painful death, caused mostly because of them making him work, and “since they were not the ones dead,” they continued their lives. Aside from the themes of “Out, Out,” the literary aspect of the poem was quite interesting in my opinion; from describing the snarling saw to the endless mountain ranges in the backdrop. Then Frost talks about a boy who had been working so hard with no time to enjoy his fast depleting childhood. This aspect to the poem relates quite similarly to the mindset of pessimistic Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye. He was troubled by society and how it unnecessarily transformed innocent children into mindless adults. Caulfield yearned to be “the catcher in the rye”; saving children from falling off the cliff of purity into the sea of a phony society.
Not that I want to label myself as naive, but many times I just with the world was a kinder place. My parents always tease me for being an idealist, which sometimes may be a bad thing. The idealist point of view sees the world with its problems, like Frost, but wants them to disappear rather than cope with them. My true desire is to rid the world of hatred and injustice, but is known to be impossible. Injustices such as how unemotional the family was over the death of their son hurt me deeply. It shows how evil the world has made some people. Like the famous philosopher John Locke, I believe that everyone was born “good” and society will either allow them to live that way, or events/people in their lives alter their view on the world for the worst. Frost tries to implement that mindset into this poem, showing how the hard, emotionless job of woodcutting effects their actual feelings as well; dulling the pain of losing a loved one and opening their eyes to the rough, real world.
All in all, Robert Frost’s “Out, Out” was a real eye-opener for me. It summed up The Cather in the Rye well and associated with the previous novel of Macbeth, discussing the brevity of life and how it really doesn’t affect mankind in the long run. Many people in India believe that life on earth in just a short, meaningless time for the real “life” exists after you die. Only after death do you truly enjoy yourself due to the lack of evils from human society. A wise motto to go by is: People will come and go, but mother nature will remain forever.
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:22 pm
The poem “Out Out” by Robert Frost is extremely moving because of the descriptive words used and the personification of the saw. This poem tells the simple, tragic story of a young boy being killed due to a machinery accidient, but Frost manages to invoke several emotions into the reader through his word usage. As the poem opens, Frost sets the stage with a setting and place to give readers the ability to picture the accident in their minds. He than continues to describe the saw as a more human-like machine through personification and this leaves the reader with an unsettling feeling with words such as “snarled” and “rattled”. With a grim feeling, the accident occurs and the saw cuts the young boys hand off. With desperation, the reader continues to read anxiously awaiting what is to come next. Though the poem is not very long, Frost managed to drag the scene out dramatically and make it almost appear endless. As the boy cried out with fear of losing his hand the reader once again feels the pang of desperation in the boy’s voice and awaits something else to happen. This emotion is so apparent in readers because Frost creates the illusion that the reader knows the boy in the poem through a few short lines and stanzas. As the young child’s life comes to an end and his heartbeat goes from “little, less, nothing” the reader feels a heavy weight of grief in their chest for a fictional character they have only known through this poem. Frost created a character and told very little about him but also managed to make him relatable to the readers. Throughout this poem the reader’s feelings transform from calm to anxious to desperate and finally to grief all through the descriptive words and careful personification by Robert Frost.
April 23rd, 2009 at 6:08 pm
The poem “Out, Out” by Robert Frost is a very tragic and depressing poem. It describes a young boy who is working outside and trying to do “man’s work.” As he proceeds to use the saw and accomplish this difficult task, his sister yells to him that supper is ready. Just as he was about to quit working for the day, the saw jumped out at him and deeply cut the boy’s hand. At first he let out a painful scream that sounded like a laugh. Then the pain quickly shot through him and as quick as lightning the boy’s life was being sucked out of him as the blood seeped from out of his hand. The doctor amputated the hand, but shortly after, the boy’s pulse was beginning to fade. They did all they could, but it was too late and the boy had died. Everyone went back to their affairs after the death of the boy. Although this poem is very short, in these few simple lines the reader feels many emotions and a lot of grief for the poor boy who lost his life. Robert Frost does a good job of connecting with the reader by using personification and many other literary devices.
In the beginning of the poem, you can already see personification being used when Robert Frost says that the saw “snarled and rattled” as the boy was using it. This lets the saw take on feelings of anger and have its own emotions. Another point in the story, the saw again takes on its own feelings. The line states that “At the word saw, as if to prove saws knew what supper meant, leaped out at the boy’s hand, or what seemed to leap- he must have given the hand.” In this simple line, the saw had taken on a life of its own and jumped out at the boy, cutting off his hand. This use of personification dramatizes the whole event and makes the reader angry at the saw although it is only an object.
Another way that Robert Frost connects with the reader is that he makes us feel like he knows the boy. He tells us that he is a young boy who is trying to be a man and do hard work. Just as he was about to stop working, the saw and his hand an awful encounter. Frost then goes on to describe every detail that is happening to the boy in those few moments. We feel sadness, suspense, and anger that the boy is having to go through this, although we have just met him in a few lines. When the boy dies, we are upset and depressed. These emotions are what make a good poem since the reader feels like they know the character.
Robert Frost did a great job of making the reader feel like they knew the character for a long time. I felt deep sorrow when the boy died and a lot of anger at the saw for what it did to the child. In these few lines of the poem, Robert Frost managed to portray a whole scene of tragedy unfolding before your eyes like you were sitting there actually watching it happen in front of you. The devices he used and way he layed out the scene make this poem very good.
April 25th, 2009 at 9:59 am
The poem, “Eating Together” by Li-young Lee creates a sense of unity of family and can be interpreted with appreciation for oneself and what family has to offer for each other. The poem begins with an introduction to what the family will be consuming in their meal together. The theme of appreciation and dedication to the Asian culture is observed when Young writes, “…my mother who will taste the sweetest meat of the head” and “…holding it between her fingers deftly”. These themes are depicted in this poem.
There is powerful imagery in this poem. I liked how I could almost vividly see and smell the potent ginger or the unique taste of sesame oil.
Additionally, I thought the poet did an excellent job describing the inexplicable father. He is not described in the first part of the poem (with the brothers, sisters and then the mother). The father seems to distant himself from his family later on after eating, even though this poem is titled, “Eating together”. Again, the imagery is strong, as I can close my eyes and see the endless snow-covered roads and tall evergreens. This creates a rather relaxing mood to the poem.
This poem can be compared to the infamous “Cosby Show” from the 1980’s and 1990’s. The Cosby family is a well-bounded family that eats together and fights together, but when all the fun and harassment is finished with, there is always time to relax and think about past events, such as eating together as a family and discussing issues within the family or at school or work.
In my freshman year of high school, I would be very busy with homework or activities at school and I rarely ate together with my family. I was diverted from even leaving my room to eat a meal. However, this year I realized that taking a few minutes a day to eat with my family can benefit my family, others and myself. There can be that room for “relaxation”, much like the father in this bantam poem.
Finally, the one mysterious line that I had to read multiple times was, “Then he lay down to sleep…”. The father must have died recently, which now creates a somber mood. The only controversy was that this is a poem about eating together. When the poem describes the father, the poem seems to disintegrate and should somehow be inserted or incorporated in the second poem, “Eating Alone.”
April 26th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Nancy M (mother of Habib) offers the following-
I have never been much of a lover of poetry, but mostly I think it is because I never really learned how to read and appreciate poetry in school. I love to read, but not poetry. That said, I found myself reading, and then re-reading “Out, Out” by Frost. I understand what happens in this telling, but also wonder why events cannot be told more clearly. I also do not really understand why this is considered to be great poetry. Remember, these are the remarks of a lover of fiction.
Then I tried reading the poem aloud, and found that there is a wonderfully melodic rhythm to the words. Poetry seems to parallel art – a medium to be studied, perused, and contemplated. And not necessarily appreciated by all. The liking of a poem is very subjective, just like the admiration, or not, or a painting. I think that the poem of Frost suggests the self-absorbtion of people, and that while tragic accidents do happen, life goes on. People move forward very quickly in their every day existence, and the victim of the accident is soon forgotten. This is a sad commentary on human existence I think.
When I read a great piece of fiction, the message stays with me. Themes are replayed in my head and I often think about the story long after reading it. This poem will not stay with me, and perhaps that is why I also do not like short story fiction. There is not enough time for the author to create an investment in characters, in order to make the reader “care” about the story.
April 28th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
This poem made me realize the injustice of the world, and I felt deeply affected by it. In the beginning, the saw is described as having a dangerous and vengeful. However, the third line describes the sweetness of the saw dust. When I read this, I could almost feel the cool breeze on my skin, carrying with it the sweet scent of freshly shaven wood. I remember the sweet smell of the sawdust that greeted me every time I entered the wood shop in our school, and other pleasant memories of working diligently on a project. However, the smell in this poem was one of deceit; though the smell was sweet, the job was far from being so. It is ironic that such a dangerous, rattling and snarling saw can produce a pleasant smell, almost as if it wills the worker to take pleasure at the scent and forget the risks of the job at hand.
Lines 4, 5, and 6 were written of longing eyes, eager to stray from the monotonous drone of the saw. The beauty of the sun setting on the mountains of Vermont clash discordantly with the next line, of the saw rattling and snarling a reminder to its wielder that the day was not yet over; there was much work to be accomplished before the weary arms could take a rest. Oh, if only the worker, but a mere boy, was ever told to take a rest..those precious minutes would be cherished. I feel that if he had that break, he would have been a more willing, as well as careful worker. He may have not let his eyes stray from his work every so often to glance upon the mountains, needing to will his mind from wandering in the way children’s minds are apt to do.
The accident occured when his sister calls him to supper. Whether the bad-tempered saw lept in anger or the boy started in his weariness was unknown, but a gash appeared on his wrist. He watched with disbelief as his life spilled out of the cut drop by drop, and this young boy, with a man’s burden on his shoulders, felt something that a child should never have to feel: that all was lost. In his young innocence he pleaded with his sister to tell the doctor to save his hand; little did he know that he would never wake from the sleep of ether to moan the loss of it. The small heart that had been forced to endure so much softly eased to a stop as the life ebbed out of the child. His family, whether willingly or not, returned to their affairs. The boy was pushed into the back of their minds, all of them avoiding the harsh reality that his death was their fault.
When I think of it now, I feel that it may have been a good thing that he passed away. He was a young child, and was forced to work because of the size of his family. Such a young boy could not do much, and was most probably a burden on his parents to provide for. His work was strenuous and he was never given the chance to be a real child. He would have had to live a life of poverty, and he was spared the harsh reality of his life by passing away when he was too young to understand.
April 29th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Robert Frost uses a variety of literary techniques in his poem “Out Out” in order to bring thoughts and emotions into the reader. Auditory and kinetic imagery is used to paint the scene with the buzz saw. “Rattling” connotes shabbiness and demonstrates that the saw is perhaps difficult to control. The volume of the saw is exemplified by the adjective “snarling” and this word also personifies the saw. Fierce and wild animals snarl and thus the saw is likened to a wild animal, a beast. This leads the reader to feel negatively towards the object. Who likes a snarling beast?
The personification of the saw is used again when it “leaps” onto its user’s outstretched hand. This makes it seem as if the object is consciously deciding on his decision to cut the boy’s hands. Because of this, the reader feel an even greater deal of sympathy for the boy because it implies that is was not the boy’s fault that he was injured.
There is some controversy involving the last line of the poem, “since they were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.” The other workers seem selfish because of the way the text was written. It makes it seem as if the workers do not care about the death of their friend. However, one must keep in mind that these are poor laborers. They MUST resume their work to continue to make a living, despite the terrible tragedy that occurred. One cannot blame a person for simply trying to make their way through life.
April 30th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
“Eating Alone” differs from “Eating Together” in that the narrator discusses his relationship with his deceased father and how he had a positive impact on his life. Also, this poem transitions to the season of winter. Because of this transition, the poet creates a more solemn mood. I like how the poet used words like, “cold, brown and old.” When reading these words, the mind begins to think of depressing and irritating experiences.
I liked how this poem discusses more of the father and son relationship and experiences together, when the father was alive. This poem can be compared to “The Catcher in the Rye”, by J.D. Salinger. The main character, Holden Caulfield cannot seem to isolate himself from the memories of his dead, younger brother. However he manages to cope with his death and continue moving on in his life and grow to a mature human being.
The most interesting part of the poem is when the narrator begins to relate the Asian cuisine to his father. Food has made a vast impact on his life. Food has brought the father to the dinner table, sharing thoughts and feelings with his own son. This is why the food is specific and depicted vividly. For example, Lee writes, “Sweet green peas fried in onions. Shrimp braised in sesame oil and garlic.
This poem differs widely from, “Eating Together”. Although “Eating Together” involves the father, “Eating Alone” describes why the son talks about his father. There is more of an emotional bond in the second poem. I also noticed that in “Eating Alone”, the brothers, sisters and mother are not described. Now the reader can understand the qualities the narrator possesses. Could people that are dead only have a true impact on him? Does he appreciate life? Although it seems that he appreciated and loved his father, those questions arise. Additionally, the poet uses colors and past memories to fully create the mood and the authors’ diction. (Green-shade, saw my father this morning, I waved to him, years back, walked with him) This was an interesting poem to read because of the poet’s style and incorporation and use of imagery.
April 30th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
Second Poem…Huh?
The point that Nikki Giovanni is trying to get across in her poem, “Mothers” is beyond me. Obviously, she loved her mother so much to make her remember the small yet petty details of her mother’s behaviors after Nikki’s birth. She tells the story from her infant point of view which I feel does add a more mysterious yet warm feeling towars the poem. However, this does not explain the fact that the end of the poem became more and more confusing until it reached its climax on the last sentence about how Nikki’s mother taught her a poem which she taught her son, who then recited it for his grandmother. Also, the poem’s last few lines refer to bearing both pleasures and pains. This is part of the context I don’t understand, for the entire beginning of the poem explained in detail Nikki’s mother, her beauty, and all of her physical attributes.
I suppose what’s most confusing about the poem is its conflicting ideas. The author contradicts herself without reason in those last two lines and I am not able to even speculate why she might imply that her mother and her’s experiences caused her pain. Sure, there would be no question about it if the rest of the poem was about hatred and dislike, but from the textual evidence it seemed more positive. There is however, one specualtion that could possibly make sense. There’s an old question that asks the recipient whether or not they’d rather die and be forgotten or die and be hatefully remembered. It is to my belief that we remember most the people that we hated and their policies. Take Adolf Hitler for example; I’m sure if you asked an average American what were the policies of Adolf Hitler, they’d remember. However, would the average American know what years FDR was president for? Chances are, they wouldn’t, thus proving my theory. Therefore, Nikki might have hated her mother so much that she remembered every single detail of hers because it was stuck in her mind. I may be overanalyzing things here Mr. Kanach…enlighten me please.
April 30th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
I think that this poem deals with people and their weaknesses and what they are willing to do to hide them. The girl in the poem is new to her school, and she is teased because she is a little different, due to her different upbringing. She ignores the comments made about her so it shows that she is strong enough to endure peer pressure and she can handle being her own person instead of conforming to what her classmates are. Though this may be her strength her weakness is her past. Since she does not live with her parents and she doesn’t live in her birth town, she pours her life outside of school into learning about where she is from. It almost seems like a secret obsession that she has that intrigues her yet it depresses her. This is because when she is learning about her home country in school, she acts like she has physical pain. I believe that this pain was truly mental and she couldn’t bear learning about the place that she misses so much. After leaving the classroom then she is able to compose herself and be strong again.
“The Substitute” can point to a few different things in the poem, one quite literal and one that is very symbollic. In a literal sense the substitute could have been the substitute teacher in the girl’s class. Though it does not hold much relevance to the poem, it is one of the people that the substitute could be. The substitute could also be the girl herself. This perspective is probably the one which most people would choose. That is because the girl shows two sides of herself. One that is the indifferent classmate in school and the girl who longs to be back in Liverpool.
The girl’s substitute being is portrayed openly during the day she is learning about England in school. Perhaps because the topic was about the thing that was a sensitive topic for her it made her want to escape. The poem describes her posture in a way that it sounds like she is in a great amount of pain, almost to the point of torture. It may imply that the idea of her being away from her family and home country is almost excruciating for her. Soon after leaving the class she is able to take herself out of the pained position and she is able to “put on” her substitute personality again, almost like a protective mask to keep her from being upset about being away from home.
In the beginning of the poem, it states the the substitute asks the girl to read to the class. When I read this I assumed that the substitute was a substitute teacher, telling the girl to read. Of course if the substitute was the teacher then it would not make sense at the end for the girl to become the teacher. Another possibility may be that the substitute is the girl telling herself to read to the class. It would make sense that her strong personality is telling the weaker girl inside to toughen up and read. That way she can continue to look like just a student who is just making it through the day to get home. Then at home she can leave her artificial personality and be who she wants to be. I think that today many people struggle with being accepted or wanting to look strong. To achieve this they create a false identity to hide behind and almost act out to look normal. The idea of doing it is not ideal because it hides the person inside but it is interesting how people choose to do this.
April 30th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
“Eating Alone”
In the poem “Eating Alone” the poet is describing how the relationship amongst the young man and his father are not close. I see the food representing the bond that is lost between the young man and his father. The language used in this poem is very vivid and you can picture in your mind and feel the emotion of the young man being on his own in his own settings. The food brings the closeness together, as would a close relationship would be.
May 1st, 2009 at 10:34 pm
Eating Alone
The poem “Eating Alone” by Li-young Lee incoporates age-old emotions that are not necessarily attributed to any specific time period. This story could have taken place in 1850 or 2009. I feel that Lee doesn’t include outside references in an attempt to make the reader isolate the character’s feelings in the poem. Three main emotions that exist in “Eating Alone” are depression, guilt, and remembrance.
Coming from personal experience, the very last harvest is always the sole most depressing time of the year. Standing amongst the skeletons on your plants, attempting to salvage and last crops symbolizes the end of months of hard, grueling work. I can completely understand Lee’s decision to make “Eating Alone” take place in the fall to begin the poem with a depressing topic to lead the way to a depressing poem. The young man walks amongst his crops, just thinking about his deceased father. After cooking a lavish meal in an attempt to distract his emotions, the young man still feels alone and worthless. Furthermore, he sees trick-images of his father all over the place and it seems to be haunting him.
The “haunting” feeling gives way to the feeling of guilt. In “Eating Alone”, the young man says he can barely remember talking to his father, but recalls certain instances of them together. The fact that they make not have even talked with each other hints to the fact that their relationship make not have been ideal. The young man goes back to the place where he remembers having a pleasant memory with his father, maybe in hopes to just think about the good times versus the bad. After walking, the young man cooks a delicious dinner, but has no one to share it with due to the lack of his father.
He probably went through all the trouble to bring cleasing to himself. It is possible that as a boy, the man did something hurtful to his dad during dinner time, and is trying to re-do the scenario and releave his guilt.
Lastly, and probably the most eminent emotion in “Eating Alone” is remembrance. In the very beginning of the poem, the young man is picking and washing onions, hinting that it is a habitual thing done every year and would probably bring memories from the past. Then, though he doesn’t remember the details like if they spoke, the man thinks back to his father and how he showed a bee eating a rotten pair. Everything reminds the man of his father, even a shovel leaning against a tree. These memories spurr the young man to cook a hearty meal, and then he realizes that he has no one to share it with. This depresses him, and ties back into the first emotion.
I liked “Eating Alone” better that “Out,Out” because though they both incorporated depression, I felt “Eating Alone” was more realistic and relatable. It is more likely to suffer from the death of a loved one than to pity a boy who gets his hand cut off and bleeds to death. All-in-all, from these poems we can learn that nothing in life is fair.
May 2nd, 2009 at 8:25 pm
“Eating Together” and “Eating Alone”
By. Li-young Lee
These two poems together, create a sense of completeness.
In the first it shows the way of live shortly after the death of a loved one. Together the family coped with the loss of the father. When he thinks of his father in this poem, it is very empty feeling. Though he compares his father to the road without travellers, he also says it is lonely for no one. Does this mean no one is there for it to feel lonely? Or does he mean that no on eneeds to be there because this place was not meant for life. It reminds me of the play “Our Town” in that for the deceased souls, the graveyard was filled but in a content sort of way. But, for the living it was very sad, and lonely because they are reminiscing their lost ones. This is how I think he meant the ’snow-covered road’ to be seen.
In the second poem, it is a few years after his father passed away. When he thinks of his father in this poem he is remembering the nice times he and his father shared. It makes us see he is understanding of everything that has happened and he is going to respect his father and the memories the man has of him. When he talks about seeing his father there was hope that it might have been true, but that was followed with reality. And he finishes with saying, ‘And my own lonliness. What momre could I, a young man, want.’ This was confusing to me at first. Why would he want lonliness? Is it because he is trying to connect with his father, thinking that his father is lonely as well. If that was the case I would say he should realize that though he lost his father he shouldn’t put himself in a sad situation like this. He should use the help of friends and family to get past it. But, he might of said this with an acceptance of his situation and an understanding that he needs to appreciate everything he has, such as the peas, onions, shrimp, and perhaps lonliness. If this is the case, I would say that though he is a young man, and he is very wise.
I think both the second poem also procures a sort of hope. This is because of the many references to the color green. When I think of green I think of: peace, hope, life, and so much more. The second poem had the onions (green as we know from the first poem), the pears, the trees, the ‘flickering, deep green shade’, and the green peas all show his hopefulness of maybe seeing his father one more time. The green also represented his movement past the shock of his father’s death into an acceptance. His life back with him again. And with this idea I decided that the last line of the second poem means that he did accept what had happened to him and that he is now seeing things with a new light. His father has changed him.
May 2nd, 2009 at 8:43 pm
Response to “Mothers”
Nikki Giovanni takes a very interesting and unconventional look at the unique mother child relationship. The relationship between a mother and a child is explained all of the time in literature. It is one of care, love, and comfort. The way Giovanni looks at it is one that I’ve never witnessed before.
She starts off the poem looking back from an old age. This part expresses the traditional relationship. The line “pulled a warm comforting silence around us” depicts the comfort a mother shields their child with. This part of the poem was one I was expecting to read by just knowing the title.
The unexpected turn of the poem after that line is what caught my attention. Quickly the point of view switches to the infant Giovanni. She is now talking about a time early in her childhood. I really liked the imagery and detail but into this memory. It made be able to see the story unfolding in front of me. Also the reality of the memory was shown in the line “she may have been smoking but maybe not”. The fact that the author is unsure of parts of her memory makes it even more real to me.
Overall I really did not like this poem. I believe that it butchered the idea of a mother’s feelings towards her children. Also after reading it I found myself really depressed. The entire poem saddened me. The mood was dark and cold. The first and second part of the poem to me should’ve been separate works. They did not blend well with each other. The poem started out happy and cheery and then took a very sharp turn downward. Overall I was not pleased with the work but I also do respect the writer’s amazing skills because the poem is very thought provoking.
May 3rd, 2009 at 8:17 am
“The Substitute” by Stephen Dunn reads more like a story than a poem. Although the sentences are split into stanzas, they still maintain the natural flow one would use when speaking. It is easy to understand, with no struggle to understand what the author is saying, and will certainly attract people who are not experienced with poetry. The poem is simple, with no metaphors or similes, just a skeleton. And while some might consider this to be insufficient, I personally enjoy it.
The poem tells about an eighth-grade girl, who develops a character to be in front of her substitute teacher. When asked to read aloud, she reads in a cockney accent. And at night, to add substance to her new persona, she researches England. This girl has a history all her own, completely different than that of her owner. And by the end of the week, the American is exhausted from holding up her facade, but when she gets to the bus stop, she perks up, becoming her English counterpart, which has become a substitute of sorts for her.
Within the first stanza, I immediately connected with the character in that my friends and I often pretend to have accents when we go places where there are lots of people we don’t know, namely Six Flags. Needless to say, we have never carried the act for more than one day, nor have we researched the parts. But I found her dedication to the role hilarious.
But at end of the poem, when the narrator says that the substitute was “in it now for the duration” suggests that his daughter would continue with the act. And that is where the more serious element of the poem was introduced. While before her new character was simply a quirk developed to make her class laugh, but when continued, she could become dependant on this “substitute” to function socially. But from having read the rest of the poem, she does not seem like a girl that would need an alter-ego to make friends. To me, it seems probable that she would keep the act up with the substitute and then let it go, and every kid has messed with a substitute.
May 3rd, 2009 at 11:05 am
The narrarator in the poem of “Eating Alone” sounds very depressed because his father died, and he is thinking of good memories that they spent together. The young boy seems to be in a field where he and his father used to go and spend time with each other, possibly eat lunch? In the middle of the poem the boy describes a flashback, or a memory of his father, at the time in which you feel the tone of the narraroter soften. I think that the boy used to eat lunch with the father in this field, but now since his father has passed away he must eat lunch alone.
The mood of this poem is soft, and the tone is quiet. This poem is a sad story because at such a young age the boy lost his father and now has nobody to hang out with, talk to, or eat lunch with. The boy now continues his life on his own, until he is able to find some dependence from a friend or other family member. I, personally know a few kids, who have lost one of their parents at a young age like the boy in the poem. It is extrememly hard to lose a parent while being a young kid, and it takes a long time to recover.
The last line in the poem says, “What more could a young man want?”. He is referring to his own loneliness, in which I think is sarcasm, or a statement of depression. What teenage boy wants to spend all his time alone, every day? Every teenage boy wants to hang out with friends, or have a baseball catch with their father. This kid has nobody, no one to have fun with.
May 3rd, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Losing a loved one is losing the life of a person, but the memories shared with them remain as “sediments” that one has collected. Sometimes, these “sediments” are apparent and visible. However, as time continues, these memories are sometimes forgotten or harder to remember. They slowly erode into a lost spirit. In Li-young Lee’s “Eating Together” and “Eating Alone,” the loss of the speaker’s father is personified, but the speaker uses the imagery of food to recreate the memories of his father. In other words, the speaker is retaining memories, rather than watching them vanish. For the speaker’s family, food was the motif of family and family was a symbol of unity.
The speaker does not rely on conversation with his father being the evidence of their relationship. For example, in “Eating Alone,” he writes,
“I can’t recall
our words. We may have strolled in silence. But
I still see him bend that way-left hand braced
on knee, creaky-to lift and hold to my
eye a rotten pear. In it, a hornet
spun crazily, glazed in slow, glistening juice.”
Therefore, this exemplifies the interactions the speaker and his father had through the use of food, which allowed for these memories to be recalled. While reminiscing of picking pears with his father, the speaker points to the the body language of his father and how his father held up a rotten pear, with a hornet spinning in the juice. This allows readers to understand that the tradition of food was vital in their relationship.
Also, the visual imagery of food is seen in “Eating Together.” Lee actively demonstrates how the eating together with his father, mother, brothers and sister was a custom.
“We shall eat it with rice for lunch,
brothers, sister, my mother who will
taste the sweetest meat of the head.”
Rice, a major source of Asian diets topped with ginger, green onion, sesame oil and steamed trout come to life. Also, after the death of the father, the mother takes over the eating of the “sweetest meat of the head.” At this moment, the mood shifts from a caring, family-oriented and amiable atmosphere, into an unsure, cold and lonely mood. Specifically, after Lee construes eating dinner with his family and indicates his mother eating the sweetest meat of the head, rather than his father, Lee contradicts the original setting. The setting moves into a “snow-covered road” where his father lay.
Moreover, when reading “Eating Alone” after “Eating Together,” an A-B-B-A structure is evident. In other words, “Eating Together” opens with eating as a family. Then, the poem shifts to the loneliness the speaker feels with the absence of his father. Similarly, “Eating Alone” opens with a “lost” and “reminiscent” tone and then returns to the eating of dinner.
Personally, coming from an Italian background, I concur with the acknowledgement of food being essential to family. For example, my Great Aunt Madelyn was the center of my father’s side of the family. Whether she was instructing my sisters and I on how to make lasagna or baking her quarter size chocolate cookies with walnuts, food characterized my Aunt Madelyn. It has been two years since my aunt has passed, but her spirit is still clear. My Aunt Madelyn was the epitome of my father’s family. Now, her shoes must be filled and her essence must remain to continue the existence of my family’s Italian customs.
May 3rd, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Nikki Giovanni’s poem, Mothers, can be interpreted in many ways. Giovanni begins the poem with the memory of the last time she saw her mother. It is evident from this first verse that she has a special, yet unique relationship with her mother. She comes home to see her mother and after greeting each other a “comforting silence” surrounds them. This shows that Giovanni is able to come home and actually feel as if she is at home. She can see her mother and spend time with her without any awkwardness. Just the fact that they can be together without even saying anything attests to the special mother-daughter connection that clearly exists between them.
Giovanni then refers back to a childhood memory. She seems to remember every detail of the one night, and is so descriptive that I could create an image of the night in my head. In this memory, Giovanni recalls how she looks at her mother and sees just how beautiful her mother is. It is moments like these where your love for your mother comes through – whether it is realizing how beautiful, smart, or kind your mother is.
In the last part of the poem, Giovanni’s mother teaches her a poem:
i see the moon
the moon sees me
god bless the moon
and god bless me”
She then goes on to teach the poem to her own son, who recites it back to his grandmother. This made me see the relationship between Giovanni and his mother as even stronger. The whole idea of anything, a poem, story, or song, being passed down from generation to generation creates a vision of a tightly knit family to me. For this reason, although Giovanni and her mother do have “unpleasantries” I still see a sense of love in their relationship. In the last two lines of the poem the author refers to bearing the pleasures as well as the pains. I was slightly confused by these lines. However, I think it means that you may not always get along perfectly with your mother, but she will still always love you. You have to accept both the disagreements and love and you will love your mother back, just like the author seems to love her own mother.
May 3rd, 2009 at 5:34 pm
In “Eating Together” by Li-young Lee, he begins the poem with describing the meal he and his brothers, sister, and mother will eat for lunch. He says that they will eat trout seasoned with ginger, green onions, and sesame oil which describes his culture a typical meal for his family. He then says that they will be eating without his father who had died weeks ago. Lee says his father “lay like a snow-covered road winding through pines older than him, without any travelers”. This shows his loneliness with his father gone. It is easy to tell that his father has recently died because Lee describes his father as a missing part of his family.
In “Eating Alone” , Lee starts the poem opposite to “Eating Together”. He begins with illustrating his emptiness without his father. He describes the ground as “cold, brown and old”. He then, recalls a moment he had with his father years ago. However, the memory is foggy now because he can’t remember if he and his father had been talking or if they had been strolling in silence. Lee then drops the topic of his father and begins to describe the meal that is almost prepared. He and his family will eat shrimp braised in sesame oil and garlic with rice. It is clear that this is a long time from the time of his father’s death because now he thinks of his father as a separate person from his family. However there is no doubt that his father’s death has affected him, because when describing what the meal will be, Lee says “And my own loneliness.”
May 3rd, 2009 at 7:44 pm
“Eating Alone” immediately portrays such a troubled young man without the presence of his father. Li-young Lee provides readers with a man who is clearly haunted by the memories that he remembers with his father. The ground is described as cold, brown, and old and the lines of the setting suggest gloominess to the day and the garden. The man is remembering experiences that he shared with his father when he was still alive. The poem almost seems as a dream as Li-young Lee describes the day the father and the son shared together walking beside windfall-pears and now the day without the father and how the garden is bare and cold.
As the man walks through the garden he is able to capture an image of his father waving to him in his head. However, when he approaches his father he is unfortunate to find out that this image was simply a shovel, leaning in the deep green shade. The man was hopeful, even planning on hollering out to his father, finally being able to spend time with him. I feel as though this stanza really embodies the loneliness this man has suffered without being with his pop. He is so lonely that he dreams of images of his father of just being able to share a simple moment together.
“And my own loneliness. What more could I, a young man, want.” To me, this line is ironic as though what more a young man could want is to have his father in his life. The relationship a father and a son share is unexplainable. Moments and experiences shared between the two are only understood by only them. Whether it is playing catch in the backyard or, in this case, gardening and enjoying the beauties of nature, this relationship is one that grows and becomes pleasantly strong. I could not imagine the trouble and depression that the death of his father has brought the character in the poem. It is literature like this that makes me want to savor every moment I share with my father, through good times and bad.
May 3rd, 2009 at 7:53 pm
The poem “Mothers” is a sweet poem describing the bond that a mother and a daughter share. Although the poem is not long, within the lines of the stanzas the reader is able to infer the the author has great respect for her mother. In the first few lines, the author introduces the relationship between her and her mother as not being perfect, with both pleasantries and unpleasantries. These words accurately describe many of the mother-daughter relationships today and by making this connection with the readers, the author is able to grab their attention. The story she tells of her mother is touching because it shows that she truly admires her mother by drawing attention to her delicate nature and beauty. Without saying it, the reader knows that the mother has possibly had struggles in the past with maybe money or her husband as she awaits either one. These lines are also interesting because it shows that even though the author was young at the time she was able to realize that her mother was always awaiting a dream to come true. In most cases this sense of awareness in a young child usually is the result of repeated exposure to hardships throughout the course of their lives. By the end of the poem, the author divulges that her mother has passed away and that although it brings her pain, she has also shared a piece of her mother with her son: the short moon poem. The passing on of this poem from mother to child may be symbolic of the relationships that both woman had with their children. Perhaps they have both experienced a lot of pain through the course of their lives or have loved having a child more than anything. Either way this poem is simple yet touching and conveys the true feelings behind the author’s words.
May 3rd, 2009 at 8:01 pm
The author of this poem sounds like he is trying to fight back emotions from his father’s death, remembering the smallest details about him, such as the way he held food. He is However, in “Eating Alone”, it is obvious how much he misses his father, describing the ground as “cold, brown, and old”. In addition, he continuously uses the theme of food to bring back memories of his father, such as the way they would walk together in the garden. The poem is a foggy recollection of the days he would spend with his father walking beside windfall-pears before his father passed away.
When he is walking through the garden, he is able to see an image of his father waving to him, but upon closer inspection realizes that it is just a shovel. He misses his father so much that he is somewhat unable to accept that his father is not there anymore, and that if he just waits and waits, somehow he will have his father back someday. In addition, he is obviously lonely without company of his dad, and just wants to have one more chance to spend some time together.
The sentence “What more could I, a young man, want” is slightly sarcastic in a way that most people think that all a young man could possibly want at that time in his life is to live for the moment, and enjoy everything that comes at him. However, Li obviously misses his father and would give up all the delicious food that he could have if he could get his father back.
The relationship between a father and son is extremely complex, a relationship that cannot be shared between any other two people. The time spent together in childhood creates a seemingly unbreakable bond, but when that bond is finally broken it shatters the illusion that a child has of his father always being there to comfort him, to educate him, to show him a good time. Even in denial, Li describes his own loneliness as part of the meal he is about to partake in, showing that nobody could ever possibly replace his father.
May 3rd, 2009 at 8:58 pm
In Li-young Lee’s “Eating Alone,” one can get the feeling of nostalgia for the past. Although the first passage only describes the conditions of the season, there is already a sense of loneliness:
“garden is bare…ground is cold, brown and cold…icy metal spigot”
The poet’s use of language, like cold and icy, portray his own feelings – isolated and alone. He feels this way probably because he had a past memory with his deceased father in that location. Now, because his father is missing, the same place is completely different.
Lee’s sense of isolation is enhanced even more by the next stanza. Although he doesn’t remember what he and his father talked about that one day, Lee can vividly see his father “bend that way-left hand braced on knee, creaky-to lift and hold to my eye a rotten pear.” Such an insignificant event on a day left such a significant impact of Lee’s life that he can describe it in the utmost details. Lee remembers the rotten pear to have hornets in it, but still glisten with juice.
The third stanza is the “turning point” of this poem. His emotions are so overwhelming that he had a hallucination of his father. This showed how important his father was in his life. Although Lee clearly knows that his father is not here anymore, he still waves to his father and approaches him, wishing all his might to believe his eyes. The disappointment when he realized that it was just a shovel must have been devastating to him, because in his mind, his father died a second time.
The last stanza brings the reader back to reality. It also shows how much Lee thought about in such a short period of time. When he is busy steaming the rice, frying onions and sweet green peas, and braising shrimp in sesame, oil, and garlic, he still feels alone, which shows the extent to how much he misses his father – even trying to busy himself, he still feels like the loneliest person in the world. The last line – what more can a young man want – brings how Lee’s childish side. He is asking for the most basic thing in the world – his precious daddy.
After I read this poem, it made me realize how precious the people are around me. Although my own parents are around every day of the week, I never really fully appreciated their contribution to where I am right now. Without them, I would be nothing. This poem shows the concept of realizing the importance of something only when it is gone.
May 3rd, 2009 at 9:08 pm
Eating Together/Eating Alone
Posted on May 3rd, 2009 at 10:08 pm by kwl06anyam and
In Eating Together by Li-young Lee the author is goes into great detail about the meal that is being prepared. He describes how just two weeks earlier his father had been eating this same meal the way his mother is.
“We shall eat it with rice for lunch,brothers, sister, my mother who will taste the sweetest meat of the head,holding it between her fingers deftly, the way my father did weeks ago”
This particular line struck me as very surreal. I think the Li-young Lee uses this line to make a point about how one day a loved one could be eating and meal with you and a couple weeks later they are gone forever.
In Eating Alone by Li-young Lee the first “paragraph” sets the tone for the whole poem. He describes the ground as being cold, brown and old and the whole atmosphere seems depressing. Li-young Lee then goes on to remembering a time when he and his father had been strolling along in that same garden that he is now describing.
He then recalls his father picking up a rotten pear and showing him the hornet that bussed around inside glistening in the fruit’s juice. Although this is a small part of the poem I think it is is a reflection of how his father viewed life. Instead of throwing the rotten pear out or discounting it he picked it up and discovered a hornet enjoying the juice of the fruit. My guess would be that his father was probably a positive person and that that is something that he misses about him because it is something he remembers so clearly.
After remembering his father, he goes back to describing the meal he is about to eat and I think that is is symbolic of him needing to get over his father’s death and go on with life.
Ultimately, I think that Eating Together and Eating Alone symbolize how he is surrounded by family but inside feels so lonely
May 3rd, 2009 at 9:08 pm
The first time I heard the title Mothers, I started brainstorming ideas on what this poem could be about. I thought that it could possibly talk about mothers worrying about their children or the role of a mom in a family. Boy was I wrong. Nikki Giovanni talks about her mom in a mysterious way. The way Giovanni writes this poem is also interesting. She breaks it up into different time periods, starting from the present, then proceeding to a flashback of her childhood. The story ends back in the present when Giovanni’s son recites the poem to his grandmother.
In the beginning, Giovanni talks about her last encounter with her mom. They exchanged gifts and stories. However, like many relationships between mothers and daughters, there seem to be “pleasantries” and “unpleasantries” between them.
Giovanni has a strong connection with her mom. She takes us back to her childhood on Burns Avenue. This is one of the earliest recollections of her mom. Giovanni is in awe of her mom’s beauty. Her mom was sitting in a moonlit room, with her long hair dangling down. However, she does not understand what her mom could possibly be doing at that time of night. Did she have a smoke? Is she waiting for her husband? Or is she pondering deferred dreams? Either way, little Giovanni is stunned by her beauty. Her mom then teaches Nikki a poem regarding God and the moon.
The poem ends with Giovanni’s son reciting the poem for his grandmother. It is unclear whether he is reciting it to her directly or spiritually. Either way, the poem signifies the passing down of poems (traditions) and the connection between the generations in her family.
Although Mothers is not my favorite poem, I found it to be interesting. It had a simple theme. She loved her mother and wanted to pass something from her mother to her son. Giovanni’s admiration for her mom comes through in the poem. Clearly, she loved her mother.
May 3rd, 2009 at 9:38 pm
Eating Together-Eating Alone
Though they are separate poems, eating together and eating alone flow together and complete one another. The first poem decribes a family meal and hints at the loss of a father, and the second one begins with the father’s story and ends with the food.
The first paragraphs provides beautiful imagery of a table laden with steaming and appetizing food. The mother takes the sweetest meat of the fish, holding it in her fingers just as the narrator’s father had done some weeks earlier. He had passed away peacefully, following a beautiful a path winding through old trees, undisturbed by anybody. The sense I get from this sentence is that the father is following the path that all people must; the path of pines older than him, the path that he must follow as all his ancestors have. The young man’s mother takes the father’s place by eating the sweetest meat of the fish, and dinner continues.
The second poem begins with the acute sense of loss felt by the narrator. The world is barren of beauty and happiness, and the harvest of the last onion describes the end of innocence and youth. The bright maple and lively cardinal escape his mental grasp as he proceeds to the frozen spigot. It is during this time that he feels the loss of his father the most, and cherishes seemingly insignificant moments in their relationship which he can never experience again. His father, though his body was not the most agile, took the effort to show him how a hornet spins busily around an overripe pear, covered in sweet sticky juice.
The narrator sees his father through the trees, and the pain is still fresh enough for him to delude himself into believing that it was him. Only until approaching his father did he realize that it was only a shovel, and that his pain would never leave.
A sweet smelling steaming array of food is in front of him along with his siblings, but he feels secluded and alone.
What I got from these poems was a strong feeling of abandonment. Though his father left the world lonely for nobody, the man feels that he has been forgotten. His father should have never left him, and the fact that he left with such peace makes Lee feel like he shouldnt be alive himself.
May 3rd, 2009 at 9:44 pm
The poem Eating Together shows the way a family reacts to the death of the father in the household. They feel lonely and abandoned now that he is not around anymore, and whenever they are gathered as a family his absence hangs over them. The author of the poem finds it strange that now their mother has to do the things their dad always used to do.
The second poem, Eating Alone, was written a few years after the father died, as opposed to the first poem which was only written a few weeks after his death. This poem describes a happier time when he was still alive, showing something they used to do together. While both of the poems talk about the idea of being lonely, the second one isn’t as concerned with loneliness as it is with trying to remember what things were like when you were not lonely.
I like Eating Alone more than I liked Eating Together because it was a lighter tone and it better detailed their life before the father died. As opposed to in Eating Togehter, Eating Alone does not just tell one thing the father used to do, but shows a whole sequence of events that would happen when he was around.
May 4th, 2009 at 12:02 am
The poem “Mothers,” by Nikki Giovanni, begins with a women thinking about her mother. As an adult they greet each other with a kiss and catch each other up on their lives. They both felt a sense of love between them as they read their own books. This is kind of odd though because the reader gets the sense that they are comforted by the presence of the other one even though they are in their own worlds. “….Pulled a warm comforting silence around us and read separated books.” I could not see my mother just sitting with me, not saying anything and doing separate things if i was visiting her (not living there anymore). She would constantly be wanting truly do something with me, like play a card game or just talk. I guess it might just be me and how I was raised, but it seems like their relationship is slightly distant, maybe more than she remembered as a child. The relationship between ones mother and oneself with change especially when the child begins to grow up and no longer see their mom as this amazing miracle worker. When we are young our mothers are invincible in our eyes (until we become teenagers, that is).
Then the author begins to recall her first real memory of her mother. All the little details that she does not even know why she thought them so interesting that they stuck with her all these years. “Mommy always sat in the dark i don’t know how i knew that but she did.” I remember my mother “always” wearing this one blue shirt. In reality, she probably did not wear it that often, it was just a really memorable moment that she was wearing it for, and then I remember a few other times. Therefor by the little kid mindset I remember her, even tough I am a teenager, as always wearing it. This woman’s mother could not have always sat in the dark, but this memory must have been extremely strong for her.
She remembers chain of events but not why they happened (only what happened). Sometimes strong memories do not need a purpose other than to remember someone special. One of my first memories was my cat, a fat black and white kitty on a red carpet. She was just looking at me so i rubbed her belly. I was wearing black shiny shoes. there is not point for me to remember this other than be able to remember something for when you were super little. Maybe our memories from when we are little also reflect our understanding of the world and how our minds worked at that age. Maybe when i was three what really interested me was kitties, shiny objects and colors. This character seemed to just be so intrigued my her mother and the mysteries surrounding her mother that other things just were not as important to remember. This woman by remembering this moment in her life might be showing how she misses it in a way. Describing someone as being “bathed in moonlight” is light putting her in a spotlight, being all that she could pay attention to. Watching her mother in this memory made “a strong believer in the samson myth” with her mother’s image imprinted on her mind forever. Mothers made little child wonder and love. The child will believe their mother’s every word. She looked at her mother with adoration and admiration, which I too can recall at an old age. I almost miss these feelings. Now I am older, I have seen through the magical curtain and understand she is human and all humans have flaws.
The last part of the poem shows this woman’s pain of growing up and not being her mother’s little girl anymore. She teaches this poem of comfort, which was taught to her by her mother in this very important memory, to her own child. It only perpetuated this cycle of the pleasure of child wonders and that can be proven false and you grow old. It could also mean that the relationship between mother and child brings both happiness and hurt but that is how it must be done. The poem can make them happy but can also bring back memories of how things used to be. In the end she is not all that different from her mother.
May 4th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
Foul Shot
By: Edwin A. Hoey
The thing that stood out to me the most in this poem was the sense of tension that was present. Suspense is present even in the first two lines, which state that the game is tied with two seconds left, so that it will be decided by a single foul shot. The level of detail in describing the seconds before the shot make it seem that a few seconds are lasting for hours.
Describing the moment before the shot as “a stretch of stillness” makes it seem that the spectators in the poem seem are eager to see if the shot will go in, like the reader of the poem, but are also completely silent. This feeling is reaffirmed when the poet says that “every face begs with unsounding screams,” after being built up by seven line of describing just the ball wobbling on the rim. The use of single words for six lines made it appear to me that time was almost standing still as the ball waited on the rim, and that the ball was acting almost as if it had a personality of its own, and was just playing with the crowd. The suspense is then stretched out further by the poet by having three lines of “and then.”
I think that the line following the last “and then” is also particularly important, because it hints at the reaction of the crowd. Writing “roar-up” in all capital letters gave me the impression that the poet wanted to contrast the reaction of the crowd after the ball went through the hoop to the silence in the moments before it. Another thing that I found interesting about the second to last line is that it describes the reaction of the crowd before the last line tells the reader that the ball went through the hoop. This didn’t necessarily give away whether or not the ball went in because fans of the other team in the crowd could have been exited that the ball didn’t go in. The reason that I thought that the poem was written this was that the last line was meant to provide a sense of relief after the poet had left the reader on the edge of a cliff from the first line. Writing the lines in that order also made the poem start right before the shot and end after it went in, which adds to the feeling of time moving very slowly because of the suspense involved.
May 4th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
I enjoy the poem “The Substitute” by Stephen Dunn. It uses irony, or even satire, to make a point. One can even interpret the poem as commenting on the superficiality of the teenage society in our modern day and age. The poem is about a girl who pretends to be English and reads in a British accent for a day while a substitute is teaching the class. However, the real teacher does not return immediately so in order not to get in trouble or look bad, the student must continue her act. She is forced to look up information to keep her story plausible and gets worn out through the effort, while her parents take no pity on her and force her to continue. Obviously, the student has received her just desserts for taking advantage of the substitute, but many students tend to take advantage of substitutes who they think are not as in control as the real teacher. This girl was simply the unlucky one who picked the wrong time to be a prankster.
In one of my classes this happens all the time. The teacher is not exactly popular with the students and whenever she is absent, one or two students from another class (presumably study hall) will come in and sit with the class. As of yet the teacher has not been out more than once in a row, but if we happened to have the same substitute twice in a row, I could imagine a situation like this occurring. The extra students would have to find a plausible story, and miss their class everyday to avoid trouble. I think this is partially a reason this poem amuses me so much.
As I said before one could view this poem as a comment on modern teens and their social interactions. All too often teens willingly or otherwise act like someone they are not so that they “fit in”. Many of these teens are simply doing it out of pressure. The character in the poem pretends she is someone else and soon gets tired of it but is forced to keep it up anyway. If someone in real life pretended they were someone else to fit in, and made friends and social groups as this person, they could not simply quit. Even if they got tired, revealing their true selves would unravel their life, which was actually the life of a fake person. This poem seems to say that it is better to simply be who you are instead of someone else. Skip the trouble, be yourself.
May 4th, 2009 at 8:05 pm
Eating Alone by Li-young Lee
Samantha Globerman
Memories are what keep the past alive. However, when memories begin to fade, the past fades along with it. There are still many more memories that will be made and eventually lose their clarity. There are things though that bring memories back to life and show that they will always be there in your mind and heart. The poem “Eating Alone” by Li-young Lee, is a sad yet inspirational poem about a young man who at a time of loneliness, is trying to remember his past. This poem also gives hope to what lies ahead in the journey of life.
The young man in this poem is looking around at the bare and lonely landscape. The description is quiet. As he begins to think, he remembers his father and the memories that he had with him. He recalls specific characteristics about him, including the way he bent down to pick up a pear. Then, he sees his father through the trees. He almost calls out to him, but then realizes that the silhouette was just a shovel. Despite trying to keep the memories clear in his mind, they are still fading.
We can also recognize that this young man greatly misses his father. Because of his extreme loneliness, we also sense his desperation to cling to his past. However, this poem also has hope. Despite the ground being bare and cold and the cardinal flying away, everything is going to return to the way it used to be. In spring, the garden will bloom again and the cardinal will be back. The atmosphere we feel is peaceful and quiet, which seems to bring the man peace and tranquility.
The sadness we feel from the poem is derived from the loneliness that the man is feeling, both from missing his connection to his father compounded by the changes in his environment. However, everything changes and he will not be lonely forever. The grass will grow tall again and the birds will come back with their songs of spring. He will always have the memories of his father, even if they continue to fade a little. The man seems to embrace the feeling of tranquility at the end of the poem. He is learning to live in the present and look ahead to the future as well. As it is said, in life, we should remember the past, experience the present, and discover the future.
May 5th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
The anomaly depicted in “Out Out” by Robert Frost is quite heinous.
Not only is the story depressing, but it is cruel. Robert Frost paints
the trecherous life of a young boy doing the work of a grown man.
Despite his hard work, he dies after living an ephemeral life. Happiness
seems transient for the young boy from the very beggining of the poem
when a dark ominous environment is introduced. Frost personifies the saw
by stating that it, “rattled, and snarled.” His eloquent writing makes the saw
seem real and dangerous. Not suprisingly, this serves as a foreshadow
of what happens later on in the poem. The saw cuts the hand of the boy,
evidentely leading to his death.
The poem by Robert Frost is well written, evoking much emotion from the reader.
Throughout the play, Frost depicts the saw as an evil though personification
and imagery: “the saw, As if it meant to prove saws know what supper meant,
Leaped out at the boy’s hand, or seemed to leap…” The reader then immediately
envisions a saw so violent in action. The saw evokes fear in the reader, as well as
curiousity pertaining to what is to happen next. Without rest, Frost immediately throws
the reader a scene full of melancholy. The boy dies after crying out to his sister, pleading
for his hand not to be cut off. One can smell the blood, the aroma of sadness.
What shocks the reader the most his the lack of mourn over the child’s death.
Frost seems to clearly emphasize the dearth of care shown by society, “And they, since they
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.” However, he makes a point
in mentioning that because these outsiders were not the ones dead-not the victim- it was
easy for them to move on: to forget. This relates to Macbeth, in that Lady Macbeth killed
herself only to be faced with a blunt reaction from Macbeth. Macbeth openly states that
her death was soon to come, acting unsurprised and indifferent in the matter.
This poem by Robert Frost not only evokes depression, but opens the door to many
who seem to care about only their state of conditions. As long as ‘they’ are not the victims,
‘they’ might as well be bystanders. However, this must not be the case in a just society.
May 5th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
“Eating Alone” is a clear depiction of the power of memories and the emotions
they evoke. Clearly, the memory of the main character’s father seems
to enervate him and make his own self seem porous. He feels as if his own
character is ebbing into darkness, engulfed by a sea of loneliness. The poem
opens in a setting full of loneliness and helplessness, “The garden is bare now. The ground is cold,brown and old. What is left of the day flames in the maples at the corner of my
eye.” Due to the first-person point of view, the reader can truly see how
the main character feels on the inside: deserted, lonely, and depressed.
The poem evokes sadness and sympathy from the reader, as the reader realizes
the strength of loneliness that seems to dominate the character. However,
his memory is tarnished due to the gap in time in seeing his father. By
stating, “I can’t recall our words. We may have strolled in silence.” the main character
emphasizes his forgetfulness. The reader can then infer that the importance
of memories is quite significant. It is the determining factor of the course
life decides to take on its trecherous journey.
The third stanza of the poem stands out as a significant turning point in the entire
poem. The stanza represents a hallucination of the main character
seeing his father waving to him from the trees. Unfortunately, he soon realizes
that his vision was actually a shovel- a remembrance of his father. This serves as a heartbreaking aspect of the poem. The reader can almost see the main character wane
and the effects of attrition.
As the poem comes to a close, the main character painted by Lee as cooking up
a stew. He is clearly trying to find an outside source in order to save his invisible character.
However, the main character, vulnerable, and full of lassitude ultimately concludes with “And my own loneliness. What more could 1, a young man, want.” He seems to accept his state of conditions, yet in sorrow and pity.
May 5th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Loneliness: a feeling we all experience. Just like hunger and anxiety, the phenomenon of loneliness can arise anywhere and at anytime, from a damp, melancholy prison cell in Guantanamo to the middle of crowded Times Square in New York City to a swiveling chair in front of a heated laptop on a rainy Sunday afternoon. But why? Why can the sentiment of lonesomeness pervade every micrometer of the human brain, flooding emotions and drowning reason? What causes loneliness? The answer to this question can only be found by those who experience solitude. For some, isolation might be facilitated by the abandonment of a friend, the escape of a beloved dog, or simply the lack of a faithful companion. Illustrated by Li-Young Lee in his poem Eating Along, loneliness is incited by the death of a loved one, in this case Lee’s father.
From the first stanza of the poem, Lee’s tone emanates a feeling of gloom and dejection. Describing the garden as bare and the ground as cold, brown, and old, Lee incites a sense of despondency and forlornness. He expounds on this negative vibe by mentioning the departure of the only vestiges of vibrant life found in the present: the cardinal. This departure symbolizes the exodus of life itself, as Lee uses the phenomena of nature, such as a hornet buzzing in shimmering pear juice, to symbolize himself and his living father.
The second stanza, in my opinion, is the most powerful and depictive of the poem. The sense of serenity and joy that arises at the mention of the “windfall pears” and the “glistening juice” of pears echoes the fond memory that Lee has of his deceased father. The fact that Lee can recall the incident of the hornet spinning in the pear and not the words of himself or his father further reflect on Lee’s connection to nature and artistic portrayal rather than words.
The third stanza depicts the great loss that Lee has experienced, portraying a disillusionment caused by reminiscence. The presence of a shovel is singular in the poem: besides from the “icy metal spigot” that Lee sated his thirst from in the first stanza, the shovel is the only manmade tool mentioned in the story. Symbolizing the irrevocable death of his father, the sight of the shovel brings Lee to reality, reminding him that his father is gone forever.
The final stanza, which is in stark contrast to the rest of the figurative and expressive poem, describes Lee’s next meal. This meal shows how even after great losses, life must go on. Even with an eternal feeling of loneliness, rice must be steamed and “sweet green peas” must be fried. The final line, “What more could I, a young man, want,” effectively closes the poem, mocking the otherwise delicious meal by comparing it with the life of his father. Lee will continue eating, but will be eating alone.
May 5th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
As Korean writer/director Ki-Duk Kim created a minimalist approach to film through his piece entitled, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter … Spring. Eating Together softly mirrors a wholesome vignette of familial relationships of people living and learning together. There is a generational rhythm evoked simply through the usage of daily routine. And embedded within the text is a lifetime of love and devotion. It is the paternal figure in the poem who fades from the scene and yet he has lived so completely so as to enjoy a peace that passes all understanding. “Then he lay down to sleep like a snow-covered road winding through pines older than him, without any travelers, and lonely for no one.” —Perfect majesty! Perfect peace–attributed to the living out of a well-ordered life!
May 5th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
“Mothers” by Nikki Giovanni
As I began to read “Mothers”, I thought that perhaps the poem would be about the distant relationship between a daughter and her mother. I predicted this from the use of certain phrases such as, “last time” and “exchanged pleasantries”. The tone the author was using did not seem to be warm, loving, and caring. However, the tone of the poem drastically turned right after the author reminisced about her childhood. As the author remembered the particular event when she woke up in the middle of the night and saw her mother, the tone began to soften and got warmer. This showed that the author and her mother might have had a good relationship.
The Samson myth was made reference to in this poem. While reading the poem, I was not familiar with the Samson myth. However, after reading the piece I did some research and learned that Samson was a man of extreme strength, which came from his long hair. Once Delilah learned of this, she cut his hair and Samson’s strength diminished greatly. Therefore, I believe that Nikki Giovanni used a reference to Samson since she believes that her mother was a strong woman. By comparing her to Samson, it has made me realize that the author was paying respect to her mother. However, Samson had somewhat of a “downfall” period in which his strength was diminished. Therefore, the author’s decision to compare her mother to Samson brings me to the conclusion that her mother faced some type of adversity in her life.
Towards the end of the poem, the mother taught her daughter a poem about god protecting and blessing children. Then, the daughter taught her son the same poem and had him recite it to his grandmother. It symbolized that the author will always remember and respect her mother. She will never take for granted the life that her mother provided for her. Therefore, although I was not sure of the relationship that the mother and daughter shared in the beginning of the poem, the end made me realize that the two had a close knit bond. The emotional and sentimental ending makes the reader feel that perhaps he should respect and be more thankful towards his own mother.
May 5th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
Stephen Dunn’s poem delivers a very pleasant way to show literal interpretations as well as symbolic interpretations. To the literal thinkers, this poem would be considered one to explain the stereotypes of substitute teachers. “Her classmates laughed of course, and she kept on, straightfaced, until the merciful bell.” When substitutes come to class, the class usually takes advantage of not having a teacher there. In most cases people will act out far from the ordinary when if their real teacher was there. They think its okay to make fun or laugh because one of the two that “we’ll never have to see him/her again” or “they can’t give me a grade for my behavior today”. Whatever the case may be, usually students will overlook the fact that a substitute is just a replacement for the teacher for the day or days.
In this poem the eighth grade girl puts on an act in front of the substitute. Exactly your typical student when a substitute is there. She puts on an accent and spends time over night researching this “made-up” person she wants to act like.
Throughout the poem and the week at school the girl gets tired of her “substitute” as an British girl. The girl’s father, or the narrator of the story, says “in it now for the duration” which exemplifies the change the girl went through. At first the act she put on was to make jokes towards the true substitute of the class, yet by this line in the poem it was clear that she has used this form of substitution as a way to get through her every day life. Perhaps it was not just a “substitute” anymore, yet it replaced that to help the girl function otherwise.
Sometimes, unintentionally people learn to like things in which were not supposed to be liked. In the case of this eighth grade girl she never thought she would follow through with the act she put on for a substitute. However, the act she put on for the substitute made her substitute herself for someone she was not yet continue to shine that side of her, unintentionally.
May 5th, 2009 at 10:08 pm
The Changes We Choose
or
On Geometric Properties.
Geometry is really not that bad of subject. Sure memorizing similar figures and angle-side theorems and bisectors and postulates and perpendicular bisector formulas isn’t that great. But think of the real world applications! If you happen to be walking one day and see a quadrilateral inscribed in a circle you can find the are if given the radii of the circle. Or you know that if said quadrilateral is a parallelogram it is also a square. Yes, geometry is quite integral to functioning on a daily basis.
Earlier in the year, I learned two theorems (properties?) around the same time. One was the transitive property, not the most confusing thing in the world. If A=B and B=C then A=C. Its like the alphabet. Only with numbers. And shapes. And proofs. It really isn’t like the alphabet at all. Soon after I had mastered the transitive property I learned the Property of Substitution. The difference between the two is subtle, like the difference between Manet and Monet. Except they didn’t have anything to do with art. Much like their relationship with the alphabet.
Substitution, I later learned, was used when proving angles complementary of supplementary. I don’t have a smiley, or a metaphor, to use right now. But, I always thought, part of what separated substitution from the transitive property was that… well … I never learned what truly separated the two. It explains at least one quiz grade. I’d like to imagine that they were different in that they operated off different things, substitution was concerned with relationships between angles (complementary, supplementary) and the transitive property was concerned with equivalents (a=b, b=c, a=c).
When I first read “The Substitute” by Stephen Dunn, I thought it referred to the substitute teacher mentioned in the opening lines. I realized midway through it was about the girls substitutions of her accent. But its not just her accent. Every time she changes how she speaks, for whatever reason, her past changes. She substitutes her relationship with her past to she can change her relationships with her peers. The first substitutes are temporary, but by the end they’re permanent. The girl clearly managed to change how others perceived her by how the perceived her past.
It seems odd substituting your past to help your future. Everyone doesn’t substitute their pasts on a daily basis but we consciously change ourselves everyday. I don’t know why but everyday we can catch ourselves saying things or choosing things so people see us different. We may not substitute huge portions of ourselves in one go, but little by little we transition from who we are to who we want to be. In a world where three different tops from three different stores sold at the same price and made by the same child in the same factory have such an impact on who we are its actually frightening. Clearly the transitive property doesn’t hold up very well.
Stephen Dunn goes on to say all sorts of things, how changing herself made her sick, how she was no longer laughed at. But I don’t believe that they are important parts of the poem. The poem is more of an affirmation to choice, we can choose to be different, than an admonishment. Too often culture is blamed for forcing people to change so they will fit in. Perhaps forcing people to “fit in” is how we learn that we can change. Not only that, the choices we make, the changes we choose to let happen, they don’t go away. One can change so completely they forget who they were, or maybe who they are. For better or for worse, we can change who we are at an incredibly fundamental level.
To me, that’s what the poem is about. It doesn’t really have a rhyme or a meter or imagery or symbolism. It tells us that we can substitute who we are for someone else. Only the choices might happen to be permanent. But I guess thats why we choose anything, we want it, we want to change because we think, or know, that we will be better for it.
May 5th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
The poem “Eating Together” by Li-young Lee releases a comforting energy when read. The “trout seasoned with slivers of ginger” is meant to be connoted as appetizing and appealing. The food that is being eaten is just a representation of the mood that is being set for the poem, because each of the family members have sat down to eat a pleasant meal together. Eating together with one’s family lets others know the bonds that are shared between the family. It is the one time of day where the entire family can all be in the same place at once, enjoying themselves and enjoying each other. The use of the phrase “lonely for no one” shows how the father figure in the family is content with his lifestyle, and satisfied with his meal. Being “lonely for no one” exemplifies the attitude one has when he or she has people to care for and love him or her. My family is one of very few families that eat dinner together at least five times a week. It is a way for us to discuss our days, and enjoy each other’s company. The tone of “Eating Together” is uplifting to read, because of the positive attitudes of the characters in the poem.
May 6th, 2009 at 9:12 am
As I have previously mentioned, I find it very hard to interpret and to comprehend free verse poetry. It makes it harder for me to comprehend this poem because as a self-procliamed anal grammar Nazi, the lack of capitilization and punctuation makes it very hard for me to focus.
But I chose this poem to analyze from the three because of one particular line:
“her hair was three-quarters her height
which made me a strong believer in the samson myth”
The “Samson myth” the author refers to is a passage in the Old Testament of the Bible where an angel promised Samson’s parents a son. They were told he must be devoted to God and refuse alcohol and never cut his hair. He became very strong and led the Israelites to defeat the Philistines (A group of peoples infamous for invasions). He continued being very strong until he fell in love with a girl named Delilah, who tricked him into saying that the source of all his strength is his long, thick hair. One night she cut it off and he became weak. He was captured and chained to the pillars of a Philistine temple. Once his hair grew back, though, he became strong again and pulled down the pillars of the temple, killing him and everyone inside.
The connection between the poem and this line is what intrigued me. The author’s mother’s hair was very long, but is her hair a basis for her strength? Or is she very strong and unrelatedly has very long hair? Is long hair even a good metaphor for strength? When I think of long hair I think of using it as a sort of security blanket, or something to hide behind. Is the strength in overcoming the many many tangles that accompany long hair, or having the long hair pulled? Will the author’s mother become weak upon the cutting of her hair?
I would not want to have a mother whose strength was based upon dead cells that grow out of her head. But I can see how a child would maybe want their mother to provide them with the security that comes with long hair, but is this what the author refers to? Or was the line just to say that her mother was strong? Perhaps I am overthinking it, but the wording of the passage is very curious.
Overall, though, I found the poem very bland, with a mediocre message. What I got out of the poem is that you can learn things from your mother, and your mother is somebody to look up to. But that seems very obvious to me, and I don’t understand why it is necessary to make a poem out of it. Maybe it is helpful for people who don’t have a very strong relationship with their mother, or maybe it is for people like me to realize what a strong relationship with their mother they have and how much it will provide for them in the future. Either way, this poem didn’t phase me.
May 6th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
“Out Out” by Robert Frost
As I was reading the poem, “Out Out”, initially I was unsure as to the message Frost was trying to send to the reader. However, once I reached the end of the poem, the larger picture became apparent to me. The tone of the entire poem is dark and depressing. However, as the poem continues and as the meaning becomes more evident, I believe the tone gets increasingly gloomy.
In the beginning of the poem, Frost uses repetition to emphasize the power of the saw. The words, “snarled” and “rattled” begin the poem, and then are also used later on in the line, “And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled”. The repetition of these words helps to personify the saw. As Frost described the saw, I began to see the saw, transform into a person with authority and control. Frost’s decision to give the saw human characteristics helped me to predict that something horrific was going to occur. Once the boy was introduced in the poem, the saw develops more humanistic qualities and becomes ruthless against the boy. As the boy exclaims, “Don’t let him cut my hand off!” the terror he must have experienced is clearly demonstrated. The reader cannot help but feel empathy for the boy since he is so innocent. As the boy is induced with an anesthetic, I found myself hoping that the boy would survive the operation. Therefore, I did not find the ending pleasant since the boy dies.
Although I believe that the tone was a little too depressing, by doing so, Frost makes a strong statement about today’s society. The poem demonstrates that the majority of people in today’s society are self – absorbed in work. The extent of their self – absorption is so extreme that death and life blend into one. This is demonstrated in the lines, “No more to build there. And they, since they were not the one dead, turned to their affairs”. The poem suggests that we need to pay more attention to other people’s lives besides our own.
May 7th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
The poem “Mothers” by Nikki Giovanni has a very calming effect to it. When Giovanni says, “i’m sure i just hung there by the door i remember thinking: what a beautiful lady,” she touches on the way children look up to their mothers as their role model. A mother plays a very defining role in a child’s life by raising him or her and teaching her child lessons that he or she will be able to use throughout the rest of his or her life. The poem that is included within the poem also contributes to the idea of a mother teaching her child by educating him or her through literature. Alliteration can be found in this poem when Giovanni says “to bear the pleasures as we have borne the pains.” The repetition of the “p” sound creates a soothing effect for the reader, and helps them to enjoy the flow of the poem. This quotation teaches a lesson to the mother’s child as well as to the reader, because it informs us that with many great things that have happened, we must also endure the not-so-great things that we have gone through. “Mothers” is a very powerful poem and in most cases, easy to relate to.
May 7th, 2009 at 9:11 pm
Eating together and Eating Alone are two poems that seem to be very unique with regards to poetry. They are written as such that they can be read independently, and seem to be about two completely unrelated topics. However, the two poems are actually telling the same story, even though the author seems to be describing two separate occasions in each poem. The last line of the second poem is what proves this idea. When he comments that nothing could be more pleasurable than the calm solitude of eating alone, he is ironically professing his sadness about the loss of his father and how all he has left of him is the seemingly insignificant event of his family eating dinner together. But actually, this event is a memory that he holds with the highest regard as it epitomizes the simple pleasures of life, that can only be fully appreciated when they no longer occur.
To emphasize this calm serenity of reminiscing about the past, the diction in both poems has a serene quality to it. Although individual words such as “spigot” stand out as being staccato and sharp, they add to an almost disjointed understanding that highlights the theme of memory. The two poems almost have a rythym that correlate in opposite ways, showing how neither poem can be appreciated without the other, much like the simple act of dining with his family.
May 8th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
“Mothers”, beautifully written by Nikki Giovanni, is a rather
unique type of poem, in that it is more story-like. As if part of
a book, the poem seems to represent an introduction, in order
to characterize some of of the main figures in a novel.
This particular poem stands out in contrast to other poems which
often emphasize solely themes and emotions.
“Mothers” is a representation of an author’s memory depicting her
relationship with her mother. Clearly, the relationship encompasses
feelings of love and care. The author mentions, “Mommy always sat
in the dark i don’t know how I knew that but she did.” This statement she
mentions here emphasizes the deep affection she has for her mother.
The portrayal is of a unique relationship: the mother-daughter relationship: not
romantic, yet still full of affection.
The poem concludes with another poem embedded in the original poem itself.
This embedded poem is taught by the mother herself to the author, and expresses an
individual’s importance in relationship to its surroundings. As the poem ends, however,
the reader is left in a sea of curiousity. Stating, “we must…bear the pleasures as we have borne the pains,” the author launches the reader into a series of
questioning pertaining to what those lines mean. Did something happen between the author and the mother that caused a great pain to be born? Or is this just a simple
unconvential statement to wrap up the poem?
I myself was confused when I read the poem, unsure of the message
the author was trying to assert.
May 8th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
“The Substitute” by Stephen Dunn appears to have somewhat of a double meaning. Originally, you would think that the title would be referring to the substitute teacher, but as the poem continues the substitute could also be referring to the eighth-grade daughter. Each time she uses her fake accent, she becomes less like who she truly is. All of her lies keep building up until she is actually a substitute of her own self. The girl’s new persona had taken had become so consistent that everyone else around her had become accustomed to it. When the poem says, “she had a stomachache, her ears hurt, there were pains,” it shows how her lies were eating her up inside, and she could not bear being someone else anymore. What had begun as a small joke, had turned into a huge mistake and misunderstanding. The daughter’s ability to take on a completely new personality and accent was so powerful that it had changed the views of her friends, family, and teachers. The poem “The Substitute” teaches a valuable lesson of being who you really are, and living to one’s true potential. It also helps the reader to understand the consequences of one’s actions.
May 8th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
The poem “Out, Out” by Robert Frost is a somber poem about a young boy who dies while working. He gets hurt while cutting something with a saw and dies shortly after. No one seems to notice this tragic death and everyone keeps on working. This reminds me of All Quiet on the Western Front when Paul dies in battle. Paul is a young soldier who has spent several years in the war and watched many of his friends die. At the end of the book, he gets killed, and no one really seems to notice. This might just be because the other soldiers have seen so many people die that they are no longer affected by the vision of death. Also, since they lost most of their friends and comrades already, they aren’t as affected by losing another one. Overall, the theme of tragic, young death is present in both the poem and the novel. Both end on a sad and somber note with the death of the main character which goes on unnoticed by everyone around.
May 8th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
The poem “Eating Alone” by Li-Young Lee shows a son reminsicing about his father after he dies. The narrator of the poem goes to the woods and he remembers taking a walk with his father down the same path. His father is now dead and when he thinks he sees his father standing there and waving to him, he gets extremely excited and starts running toward the apparition until he realizes it is just a figment of his imagination. This story reminds me of Maus II where Art is trying to document his fathers life. At times, Art and his father have disagreements and Art usually gets extremely fed up and frustrated with his father. During the story, his father dies and Art suddenly realizes that he really did love his father and that he actually misses him. He learns that sometimes you don’t appreciate what you have until it’s gone. Similarly, the narrator of the play’s father has died too, but the logistics of their relationship is not revealed to us in the poem. We can guess that the narrator misses his father because when he thinks he sees him, he, “almost calls to him” before realizing that it was all in his imagination. Both works of literature show that sometimes you don’t appreciate something before it is gone and the power of loneliness.
May 8th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
“Out-Out” by Robert Frost is a display of Frost’s outlooks and beliefs on life. From the first set of lines you are instantaneously engaged as Frost uses onomatopoeia in the line” The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard.” This literary device allows for an imaginative picture of a hardworking boy sawing at the wood. The words “snarled” and “rattled” also connote a violent and sinister tone which allows the reader to foreshadow that this saw may lead in this ominous direction. Aside from the abundant amount of literary devices profound in the first few line of this beautiful written poem, there is a theme that prevails in this text that not only makes you ponder about life but also what life has come to. Frost sets the scene in the afternoon as the sun is setting upon the Vermont Mountains. A boy is working dangerously hard and as his sister calls him in for dinner he cuts off his hand. Eventually this led to a total catastrophe and coasted him his life. Two major themes and beliefs come out of this poem. One of these themes is the idea of letting kids just be kids. When children grow up, the rest of their life they will be working and develop a more serious persona. During childhood children should enjoy every second of it because it goes by quicker than you could ever imagine. I am not saying that children should not work hard, but there is a limit. This poem fills my heart with some grief because it reminds me of how many children do not have the privilege just to grow up in a fun and loving environment where they can just be a kid. Although I cannot directly connect to this having been granted the ongoing gift of a great childhood, there are defiantly people out there in this world that are not growing up as I am. Another theme found in this poem is the idea of selfishness. After the innocent boy died by the line “And they, since they Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs” we see that people moved on with their life displaying the idea that people only care for themselves. Selfishness prevails in all of us and is a struggle that is hard to defeat. This self-center ness is something I examine daily in others and in myself. Sometimes the right thing is the hard thing to do and when you do overcome this selfishness it builds your character and the person you are. We are not expected to start out as perfect human beings, we have much to learn but our job in life is to build on who you are and become a person you are proud of.
May 8th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
“The Substitute” by Stephen Dunn is a story of a girl who changes her identity every time she has a substitute teacher. At first she pretends to be someone from England and her class finds it extremely funny that she is pretending to be someone else. As the week drags on and her teacher still hasn’t returned, her classmates slowly lose interest in the once entertaining act. By the end of the week, she complained of being sick and was sent home. The girl is so tired of being a different person that she just wishes she could be herself again. The title “The Substitute” has two meanings. It can refer to the substitute teacher or even the substitute personality that she has created for herself. I think people can relate a lot to this poem because everyone has wanted to pretend they were someone else. Whether it be when they were little and playing dress up or even at school when they were trying to reinvent themselves. Either way, the game of dress up has to end sometime because you can’t pretend to be someone else forever. Like the girl in the poem realized, being yourself is easier and more fun than pretending to be someone else.
May 8th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
“The Substitute” By Stephanie Dunn is poem that almost everyone can relate to and apply to a situation in their life. In this poem, an eight grade girl has a substitute in school. Usually when this happens most kids do not act how they normally would in a classroom setting. This girl described in the poem takes this to a whole new level by taking on a whole new personality and background. As the substitute appears the day after, the girl again changes her persona and acts like a different person from the day prior to this. Many classmates saw this as comical and followed along but then it soon got to the point where everyone was used to it and it was nothing out of the ordinary. I believe the reason that this girl took on the role to act like a different person each day was due to insecurity within herself. Having a substitute teacher in the first place allowed her to start this prolonged acting because the teacher would not be able to know that this is not who she really is. But this first action must have been sparked by some internal feeling eating her up inside. This acting seemed to be a security blanket for the girl, allowing for her to forget about her old self that made her unhappy and insecure. Being a different person each day did not allow for time to be unhappy and unconfident with herself. As time went on this gotten to a point where she relied on this and could not withstand in a social setting without changing who she was constantly. While reading this poem I inserted myself in this eight grade girl’s position and could imagine what she is feeling inside. I get an overwhelming amount of emotion that makes my stomach twist into knots. As I am in the front of the classroom reading I would feel a sense of nervousness implementing my new character. The person I truly was would always be in the back of my head dying to come out. Although the only way I can truly relate to this girl’s emotions on her level is imagining myself in her position, I can relate to her situation on a smaller scale. Throughout your life, there are times where you do not truly act yourself and hide who you are because of the fear of judgment. Many times in my life when just meeting someone I am not the usual person I am which is natural and something that everyone faces. Although I do not fully act the way I normally do sometimes, I do not pretend to be something I am not. A theme in this poem that I myself have learned is that to dwell on what others think is pointless and wastes time and energy. One of the most important things in life is to have confidence in yourself and if you carry that along with you nothing else matters.
May 8th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
“Out Out” by Robert Frost is a sad, touching poem. From the very first line, Frost uses dark words such as “snarled” and rattled.” These words are used to describe and personify the saw that the boy is using. They connote a dangerous feeling, and show that the boy shouldn’t be using it, but an adult should. The poem goes on to reveal that the boy is doing a man’s work. This evokes a sad, sympathetic feeling in me because a child should not be doing unsafe work that is meant for a man. Children should be playing and having fun, which is clearly not the case for this boy. A solemn feeling is further evoked in me at the boy’s excitement when he is called in for dinner. His excitement shows that he was probably starving after a long, hard day’s work, and the only joy he gets in a day is eating. I was probably the most affected by the poem, however, when the boy pled to his sister, “Don’t let him cut my hand off- Don’t let him sister!” The boy’s desperate call for help shows how scared he was and how much pain he was in.
In the last two lines of the play, Frost presents a message that when a loved one dies, everyone will eventually move on with their life. They cannot dwell on the past because there is nothing they can do about it. Life goes on, and one cannot be sad forever. The poem also shows how a young life can be taken away so quickly and unexpectedly. This makes me appreciate my life more, and to not take anything for granted.
This poem reminds me of Angela’s Ashes because in the book, Frank McCourt and his brothers had to grow up faster than most chlidren do, like the boy in the poem. Frank, the oldest child, was forced to take his father’s role in the family since his father was never really there. Also the them of dying young and unexpectedly is present in both the poem and book, because many of Frank’s siblings die at a young age. Both Frank and the boy were forced to do men’s work, but they were “a child at heart.”
May 8th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
The poem “Mothers” is an inspiring piece that reminds us how much our mothers truly do for us. Mothers go far beyond the limit to comfort and raise a child to become the best person they can possibly transform into. The atmosphere of this poem is sort of sultry with a thick blanket of sorrow casting over the son and mother’s lives. They are both delighted to see and be with each other but reality is that the mother seems unhappy. A quote that exemplifies this is,” she was deliberately waiting perhaps for my father to come home from his night job or maybe for a dream.” From this quote I get a feeling that the mother is just not satisfied with her life and is struggling. Happiness is rare for her and dreams do not seem to come true. Every day this constant feeling of disheartenment drains on her and wears her out. Even though it is a constant struggle everyday, the mother is fully committed to her child and does not give up on raising him even in the hardest of times. When the mother taught the child the poem late at night that showed me she was full of compassion and was dedicated to her son. No matter how hard life got she would always put her child first. The poem taught the boy that there are pleasures in life but also pain and that it is important to outwit the pain because majority of life is filled with happiness. This nurturing poem allowed me to feel optimistic and joyful. It permitted me to realize that you will always have a mother’s love and it is something that will never go away or can be taken from you. I can directly relate to this poem because my mother is the same way as the one portrayed. She goes far beyond the limits and will always put our family before herself. My mom is fully committed to the family and would do anything for each and every one of us. It is reassuring to know that I will always have this even in the most sorrowful times. A mother’s love is something that could never be explained, not even in a million words. Like the mother in the poem, my mom will teach all that she knows, do as much as she can, and help as much as possible. I owe all that I am and all that I will become to her and my dad.
May 8th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
“The Substitute” by Stephanie Dunn is about the story of a girl who changes her identity everytime she has a different substitute teacher. Everytime, she would adopt a new accent, therefore becoming a “different” person. Her classmates first find her act funny, however when she continues her accents throughout the course ofthe week, her classmates don’t find it amusing anymore. At the end of the poem, the girl’s ears and stomach hurts; she becomes sick. This is because she is actually sick and tired of the way she’d been acting. Being a different person other than herself was too exhausting. This poem reflects what many students go through in school. People adopt certain personalities or styles just to fit in. They are afraid of being themselves, and feel the need to change. However, as shown in the poem, eventually the person will not be able to keep up with their fake, or “subtitute” self. The title, “Substitute” does not only refer to the substitute teachers in the girl’s class, but the girl herself. She is always changing who she really is, therefore being a substitute of herself.
May 8th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
The poems “Eating Together” and “Eating Alone” evoke feelings a sadness a family feels from a loved one who has passed on. When they are sitting down ready to eat the fish I get the idea that the mother is now trying to make everything seem the same as the author states “The way my father weeks ago.” When Young describes the way the father passed on, it portrays a very peaceful and calm feeling to me.In “Eating Alone” the auhtor seem to want to capture the tender moments that were spent gardening together. But now that the father is gone, the son is now implementing the knowledge he learned from his father into his own life and actions.
May 8th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
“Mothers” by Nikki Giovanni shows the unique and strong mother-daughter relationship she has with her mother. Giovanni says that when she goes home, a “comforting silence” surrounds them. This shows that Nikki truly feels at home with her motehr, and just her presence comforts her. Nikki then recalls a childhood memory that she can still significantly remember. This memory reveals the sadness of her mother. Nikki says that her mother was sitting in the dark, and “waiting perhaps for her father to come home from his night job or maybe a dream”. This proves that her mother way not truly happy. Maybe there was a dream of hers that was never fulfilled and she was waiting for it. Nevertheless, it was that night when she realized how beautiful her mother really was.
In the last part of the poem, Nikki’s mom recites a poem to her. Nikki, then goes on to tell her own son that poem. This shows how valuable the message of the poem must have been to Nikki since she told her own son. Although there are problems and unhappiness in this family, as there is in all, I think this family is strong because they pass down their wisdom and messages from generation to generation so this insight can stay in the family.
May 8th, 2009 at 10:08 pm
out out
Out Out is a very interesting poem because of the many literary devices used. Robert Frost uses allusion in the title to Macbeth’s quote “out out brief candle” when he first finds out about Lady Macbeth’s death. More importantly, this poem is known for its imagery that it connotes. Through the use of onomatopoeia, auditory imagery is used in the words “snarled” and “rattled”. It connotes a loud vicious sound by the saw and personifies it as a vicious monster. Other imagery is used such as visual imagery when Robert Frost describes the sun setting in Vermont. The last sentence of the poem proves to be a most interesting line in Out Out. The workers seem to be only self interested because they continue to work even though their friend goes through a tragic death. However this is justified because they must continue to work for survival.
eating together+eating alone
Both the poems Eating Together and Eating Alone seem to be closely intertwined. Visual imagery is used in the first few lines where the reader imagines a family eating a complete meal together. A mood of happiness is created here but is then destroyed once the death of the father of the family is mentioned. Instead of a happy mood created by the family’s meal together, a mood of loneliness is created when the author describes his father’s lonely path. In the second poem, the death of the father is explained more deeply and its sad effects on the family. The author attempts to reminisce his relationship between his father and himself. He finds it difficult to remember those conversations and the activities that they did together. Because of this, he believes he is lonely without his father.
the substitute
The substitute is a poem of a young girl who attempts to make her class laugh by pretending she is English. However, her class becomes tired of her antics, and she becomes weary of learning about England to convince her substitute teacher of her new identity. She is now forced to live with her new identity. There is much organic imagery in this poem. The author says “she had a stomachache, her ears hurt, there were pains”. This imagery helps the reader understand her difficulty in keeping up with her new identity. Also, the other figurative language in this poem brings the story of the girl to life. “Bent over like a charwoman” gives the reader an image of how the girl looked at that time, and again displays how she was affected by her having to keep at her trick. Also, the story of the girl’s fake life gives the poem more meaning by going into detail about the girl’s comprehensive story of her “life in England.” Apart from making the girl’s story more believable to the substitute, it gives the poem more affect by explaining how the girl’s new identity became her life for that week, and why she would have been so exhausted of the whole trick by the end of the week.
mothers
Mothers is a very touch poem about the author’s appreciation for his mother. The poem starts out with the author flashbacking to the time when she was an infant. She describes the close and unique relationship that she had with her mother because of the emotions that the mother and the daughter shared . The vivid imagery explained in the flashback makes the poem both exciting and mysterious. The most influential part of the poem is the last two lines after the author recites the poem taught by her mother to her son. It brings back memories of both pleasure and pain to the author. She is able to remember and pass down her great experiences with her mother but at a cost of desiring them again.
May 9th, 2009 at 7:07 am
“Eating Alone” is a very interesting poem that shows human traits that anyone could possess. As you read more into the poem, the feelings and the realism coming from the words is amazing. It truly feels like someone is telling you their life on that day and how the past has impacted it. This man talking in the poem talks about his dad and the beach, all likely things we are to remember when we are all alone, but never write them down. Writing down the little “day dreams” that come to you doesn’t seem that appealing, but this man did and they truly speak measures to the reader.
Emotions are something everyone has, just not everone chooses to show. The man in “Eating Alone” is pouring out his emotions, maybe not in the text, but in his actions and niches. He tells us that he remembers his father and how his father had influenced him. He emjoyed being around him and remembered the good things about his dad. The shovel turning into the dad in the man’s mind tells me that his father has passed away. When the son runs out to go to his dad, he realizes it’s a shovel, not his father. This tells me that he really misses his father and now fels like a part of him is missing. The love that he had was immesurable, and it was all taken from him once his father died. That mixture of different emotions flood over the man and has ultimately left him depressed and feeling lonely.
Feeling depressed is a natural trend of human life. At various points in time, everyone gets depressed over something. A lost loved one, a bad grade on a test, the yankees losing AGAIN; these are just some of the tings that depress people. This man is going through depression and goes even further down that road after he sees his “dad” as the shovel. There is alwas something happy to go back and remember, but most people choose to live in the moment and not remember the good times in the past. He certaintly is remembering the fun times he had with his dad, but after hallucinating, he just goes right back into depression. Although it seems like he might turn out to be happy in the end, the end of the poem shows that he slips right back into his own little world.
Symbolism is so strong in this poem. The removal of the last onion from his garden was just like him losing the last person he had that mattered in his life. “The garden is bare now” because he has an empty feeling in his heart. There is no one there left to care about him. Everyone that used to care has either died, or gone away, and this is tough for him to handle. He sees the sunset out of the corner of his eye, fading away, just like his hope on finding a good life. You can tell he is upset when he refers to just common faucet as an “icy metal spigot.” A little sarcam in the end is made when he is telling us all of the wonderful food he has made. “White rice steaming, almost done. Sweet green peas fried in onions. Shrimp braised in sesame oil and garlic” All of this is great, but then he says, “And my own loneliness.” This tells us that even though he has created this fantastic meal, there is no one there to share it with. He prepared this feast for many people, but it was only him who ate it. There was no one there to share in his good fortune, his his times of sorrow, or even just his normal, routine days. There was no one there to help him when he was down, or encourage him to do better. There was no one, anywhere.
May 9th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
“Out, Out” by Robert Frost portrays a situation of great danger in a place of great beauty. The poem starts out with breath-taking imagery of the setting, however as the poem progresses it provokes deeper and darker emotions. Though the tone is set with a beautiful surrounding and a family hard at work, the scene quickly turns cold. Void of the youthful thrill to the call of dinner, instead the author humanizes the buzz saw, giving it life as it “leaps” out of the boys hand. This is the most important part of the poem as it shows how devoid of human feeling the rest of the poem is in comparison. The conclusion of the poem serves to underscore this apparent apathy. Another point to note is that though the boy loses only his hand, he ends up losing his life. This may be the author’s way of saying that since the boy could not work anymore, in a way, his life was over since he would not be worth anything to his family. Even the boy seems to buy into this belief that he is not worth anything if he can’t work, as his final cry is to save his hand, instead of crying out to the doctor to save his life.
The two poems by Li-young Lee, “Eating Togeher” and “Eating Alone”, use similar imagery to convey guilt and loneliness. Both use the contrasting images of warm family life and eating together and cold snowy death to verbally recreate the conflict within the author’s emotions. In “Eating Together” the scene is set with a mouth-watering dinner, and yet ends in memories of a father sleeping like “a snow-covered road”. In “Eating Alone”, the author uses the opposite approach of beginning with cold imagery of a bare garden, an “icy metal spigot”, a “rotten pear” and a dying hornet. However, he ends the poem with warm imagery of “rice steaming” and succulent culinary dishes. Both poems convey the author’s loneliness and guilt at being able to enjoy life even though his father has passed away.
May 11th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
“Foul Shot” was a poem that I felt like I could really relate to. Sports are a major part of a lot of people’s lives in this world today. People root for their favorite teams however they can in any type of sport. They buy tickets and go to games, watch their teams on television, and get a lot of memorabilia to show their support. In the poem “Foul Shot”, the basketball game was more than just a regular game, it was a part of life. It was a major moment in time and a memory that would be with the boy for the rest of his life. That game would be part of sports world history, and that is the feeling that makes this poem so great.
The first thing that I loved about the poem when I was finally finished with reading it, was how suspenseful it was up until the actual basketball shot. The poet made the reader sit on the edge of their seat while reading the poem, just waiting and anticipating the shot. It was fun and exciting to read about how the boy was getting ready to make the basketball shot that could make or break the game. I liked how the poet made it suspenseful by saying how it was the last few seconds of the game and really portraying the setting as if you were sitting right in the stands. He drew a great picture in my mind of what it would have looked like if I had been at the game right then and there, and I could relate to it perfectly.
The other thing that I liked about the poem was the author’s use of word choice. When Hoey talks about how the boy was preparing to take the shot and how the ball landed in the hoop, he used a lot of verbs and words that made you feel like you were right there in the game. I could really see what was going on as I was reading the poem. All the words made me get into the poem even more and I liked his writing style. I thought that this was a very clever way to be suspenseful and make sure the reader could really connect with the poem. After all, who hasn’t been to a sports game like that? They are so exciting!
Overall, I think the poem was very good and the writing style had a smart way of getting the reader involved. I thought that the poem was suspenseful and exciting, and it made me want to be at the game right at that moment. I thought that Hoey did a great job of getting the reader to connect with the poem as best he could, and next time I am at a basketball game like that, I will remember this poem.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
“Out Out” – Robert Frost
Frost introduces his elegy, “Out Out” with touches of brightness in the introductory stanza with calming diction that is typically found in poems about nature. However, this is quickly contrasted by the lines following his references to nature and the melodies of a chainsaw. Using olfactory, auditory and visual imagery, the first-half of the poem’s tone seems to demonstrate almost a calm mood, with the “sweet-scented” aromas of sawdust, the “buzz” of the chainsaw, and the vast Vermont “mountain ranges one behind the other”. The next several lines of the poem allow readers to connect to the poem as Frost shows the human interaction between an overworked boy and a very domesticated sister. If the poem had not said that they were both children, readers probably would have assumed that Frost was talking about a middle-aged couple living along the countryside. A major idea that can be derived from this poem is that Frost is expressing the injustices of forcing children to do the work of adults, in addition to the indifference that human nature and society has to death. Frost shows a strong connection to the French philosophe Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose ideals included the belief that children were not just simply small adults, and that they need time to mature. Frost remorsefully describes the child as “doing a man’s work, though a child at heart…” showing his sympathy towards the worn-out child. As the child tragically approaches his death from the saw, which apparently “leaped out at the boy’s hand,” Frost boldly insists on an idea that is found throughout the human society, which is its reaction to the dying versus the death. As the child’s imminent death was coming, the doctor and the sister watch, possibly with sorrow and grief. But when he finally died, Frost states that “since they were not the one dead, turned to their affairs,” showing their indifference to his death after he actually died since they were just grateful that they were not the one dead. This is similar to a line from the movie Hotel Rwanda which spoke of the ignorance of the American people. When asked whether or not the media should do more coverage of the genocide in Rwanda, one of the characters responded that the American viewers would see the situation with sympathy, but would eventually turn around and worry about their own daily lives, forgetting about the tragedies happening half-way across the world.
“Eating Together” & “Eating Alone”
Although both of Lee’s poems both deal with the same ordeal of his father’s death, “Eating Together” seems to share a slight difference in tone with “Eating Alone”. “Eating Together” opens up with gustatory and visual imagery of the great feast he is about to have. He speaks of his mother’s presence and the warmth that he feels for the coming meal. However this is overshadowed by his father’s death. “Eating Alone” also starts out bright, but also becomes overshadowed by his father’s death. A difference that can be observed between “Eating Together” and “Eating Alone” is that he uses the presence of others to almost hide the sorrow for his father, whereas in “Eating Alone”, he uses the natural surroundings to do this. It seems that there is more sorrow involved in “Eating Alone” than there is in “Eating Together”.
May 11th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
“The Substitute” by Stephen Dunn
Rachel Brown
Mr. Kanach Period 4
This poem is about a girl who substitutes a character in place of her own self in order to fool a substitute teacher. This poem was very relatable because we all know what it’s like to fool a substitute teacher! I remember times in Mrs. Vachon’s fifth grade class where we used to think it was hilarious for the boys to switch their name tags with the girls. The substitute believed that my classmate, Max, was named Rachel (we told her it was pronounced “Rackel” because we thought that sounded more masculine) and I was named Max, short for Maxine.
Anyway, I really liked this poem because I thought it was quirky and funny. The girl uses a fake accent to fool a substitute, but then she realizes it actually takes a bit of work to change her character. Then, because the teacher turns out to be out for more than just one day, she has to do research to come up with a believable story about her family. Exhausted from the extra work she has done just to fool a substitute, she pretends to be sick to go home early.
This poem was ironic because in order to fool a substitute she had to do more work than just be herself. It wasn’t even worth the comedic value after the first day because her classmates got used to it and it wasn’t funny anymore.