Robert Frost's poem "Out, Out--" is the story of a young boy "Doing a man's work, though a child at heart--" (l. 24); the boy is using a saw to cut wood.  Frost creates a sense of foreboding from the beginning by describing how the saw "snarled and rattled" in line 1 and repeats that phrase twice in line 7.  He follows those cacophonous words with "And nothing happened" in line 9, foreshadowing to the reader that "something" must happen later in the poem.

Frost also uses personification when describing the saw to add to that sense of horror. When the boy's sister comes to tell him that it is suppertime, "At the word, the saw, / As if to prove saws knew what supper meant, / Leaped out at the boy’s hand, or seemed to leap—" (ll. 14-16), cutting the boy's hand.  This personification indicates that the saw chose to cut the boy's hand instead of it being a tragic accident.  Added to the fact that it is a young boy instead of a man, the tragedy is even greater.  Frost emphasizes that tragedy at the end when the doctor is working to save his life: "They listened at his heart. / Little—less—nothing!—and that ended it" (ll. 31-32).  The use of the dashes adds to the anxiety of the reader who wants the boy to live.  But, in the end, there was "No more to build on there. And they, since they / Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs" (ll. 33-34).  The tragedy comes when no one even comments on the boy's death, but instead all turn to their affairs and continue as if nothing happened.

How does Robert Frost create tension in the poem "Out, Out—"?

In Frost's poem, "Out, Out--," there is an underlying tension between machine and human.

One interpretation of Frost's poem "Out, Out--" considers the year in which it was written, a time when boys were losing their lives to the machinery of war. The technology of war was tearing limbs from young men, depriving them of the vigor of their youth, if not their lives. Perhaps, then, in this poem Frost imitates the dichotomy of man and machine in war, one that is certainly unfair when the "man" is still but a boy.

The tension of this poem is first expressed with the personification of the saw; that is, Frost affords the saw the powers of a living creature, thus equalizing it as a potential adversary to the boy, just as in war. It is an aggressive creature, too, that works ever so swiftly: 

The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard
And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,...
And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,

Clearly, the saw's aggression is expressed when it "Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap—" severing his hand.

The onomatopoeia of "buzz" and the sound words in the above lines create a certain tension, as well. For, the saw makes aggressive and disturbing noises with the snarling and rattling sounds. Also, the alliteration of "dust and dropped" and "saw snarled...snarled," which speeds the line, suggests a certain danger for the boy.

How does Robert Frost create tension in the poem "Out, Out—"?

The first line describes how violently the buzz-saw moves and sounds as it "snarled and rattled in the yard." Then the speaker counters that violent image with how pleasant the landscape is in the background. He then comes right back to the violence of the buzz-saw, repeating how it "snarled and rattled" in line 7. So, in this peaceful world, there is this threatening object that snarls like a lion or tiger. Once again, the speaker suggests a cessation to this violence, stating that "nothing happened." This is temporary. This back and forth dichotomy of violence and peace heightens the tension. The tension is increased even more when he suggests something will happen.

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.

The tension climaxes with the "leap" of the saw. Again, the saw is personified and this makes it seem like a predator. We might also call this "zoomorphism" rather than personification or anthropomorphism because the saw is given the characteristics of an animal. The tension reaches its peak when the saw takes the boy's hand and is sustained until he takes his last breath. By treating the saw like a living predator, Frost provokes the reader to prepare for some kind of attack.

In the poem "Out, Out—," how does Robert Frost bring about the tragic death of the boy?

In his poem "Out, Out--" Robert Frost uses the juxtaposition of positive, warm details to emphasize the horror and unexpectedness of the boy's sudden death. The poem begins:

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 the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,

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.

‘Don’t let him cut my hand off—

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

How does Robert Frost create a sense of tragedy in "Out, Out?"

I think that Frost creates a real sense of tragedy in the family's reaction to the death of the boy.  The child's death is tragic, but it is not tragedy in that it is more of a chance, sad chance, occurrence.  The reaction of the family takes time and there is a certain tragic reflection of how "life goes on" and there is little else to gain from mourning.  The business of working on the farm continues, money to be made, and toil needed.  It seems tragic to me because the grind of the work machine literally killed the boy and symbolically seems to be killing of the boy's memory.  In this, I sense that there is a tragic dimension to the poem, something brought out even more by the abrupt end to the poem.  There is little to indicate why the family has chosen to adopt such a perspective regarding the boy's death.  However, the reality is that the boy's death is something looked beyond after a while, suggesting that even in memory, he is no longer of any value to the family.  He realized this himself when he pleads to not lose his arm, almost foreshadowing his own uselessness to the family and when it becomes realized, the tragic condition in the poem presents itself.

How does Robert Frost try to bring out the sadness of the boy's death in "Out, Out--"?

The title of the poem is a reference or an allusion to the play Macbeth. Upon learning of his wife's death, Macbeth talks about how fleeting and meaningless life is: 

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. (V.v.25-30) 

In the poem, the boy dies too young. His life was much too "brief." The speaker in the poem wishes the boy had been given a break.

"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."

The boy is doing "a man's work." The speaker implies that, ideally, the boy should be playing or doing a boy's work. Unfortunately, the family needs the boy to work. So, his life is cut short and because he had to work, he has lost a significant portion of his childhood. 

There are more obvious attempts at empathy. The boy's cries not to have his hand cut off are powerful. The boy dies and the family returns "to their affairs." Here, the speaker is being very critical. The boy is dead and there is no mention of the grieving process. They simply go on with what they had been doing. The boy's shortened life is sad to begin with. The indifferent reactions of those around him make his life/death seem more sad and less meaningful. This is the connection to the quote from Macbeth. 

Is the boy's death simply a random part of nature? And if it is random, does that make it more senseless? Or is it a result of humanity's growing obsession with technology (the saw)? Frost does not answer these questions about death. He leaves it for the reader to decide. For some, this lack of closure adds to the meaninglessness and perhaps adds to the sadness of the poem.