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

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.

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.

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 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!’

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. 

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.

Identify the ordinary and horrific details in the poem "Out, Out--" by Robert Frost.

Robert Frost wrote the poem “Out, Out---“ based on an event that he remembered from growing up. A neighbor boy had been killed in a farm accident.  The title of the poem alludes to a quotation from the Shakespearean play Macbeth.  When Macbeth learns of the death of his wife, he compares her brief life to a burning candle:

Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poort player
That struts and frets his time upon the stage
And then is heard no more...

A person’s life is so precarious that it can be easily eradicated like snuffing out the flame of the candle. In this poem, a young boy’s life is lost using a buzz saw.  

The poem’s summary involves a young boy working with a buzz saw that  he should not have been using. He was too inexperienced to be using this dangerour machine.  As he is cuts the wood, his sister calls everyone in to supper.  The call surprises the boy, and the saw goes out of control and nearly cuts the boy’s hand off.  The family takes him to the doctor, who has to cut off the hand.  While a nurse watches him,  he begins to breathe erratically.  He slowly stops breathing.  Frost points out that the other people went on with their lives.

Ordinary aspects of life mentioned in the poem

• The surrounding area and setting are described. 
• The poem takes place in Vermont. 
• Five  mountain ranges can be seen in the distance. 
• The wind is blowing and bringing the smell of the sweetly scented wood.
•  The boy is cutting stove length stick of wood.
•  The sister calls out to the workers that it is time for supper.
• The young boy has worked all day.

The description of the boy

• The poet wishes that the boy had been given thirty minutes   to play instead of working the same amount of time that the adults work.
• After cutting his hand, he is in shock and laughs rather than cries.The boy seemed to give his hand to the saw.
• He asks his sister not to let them cut off his hand.
• In reality, the boy knows that he has lost the hand. 
• His lips puff out as he breathes.

Five images of the buzz saw

• Using onomatopoeia, the buzz saw makes the sounds of rattling and snarling.
• Dust from the saw fills the air as the wood is cut and falls to the ground.
• Again, in line 7, the sounds of the saw are mentioned.
• In connection with the sounds, the poet says that the saw runs either lightly or it had to bear a load. 
• The saw leaps out of the boy’s hand and cuts it deeply. 

The medical events

1. The saw almost cuts off the boy’s had.
2. The boy asks his sister not to let them cut off his hand.
3. The hand bleeds excessively.
4. The doctor gives the boy ether to anesthetize him.
5. At first,  his breathing seems normal: in and out, in and out.
6. The nurse takes his pulse and becomes concerned.
7. The boy’s heart slowly stops beating. 
8. The boy dies.

Theme

The poem ends with the theme that since the people who were observing the death [which would include parents, sibling, relatives, and friends] were not the one who had died that there is nothing to be gained by focusing on the death of the young boy. 

And they, since they
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.

Life goes on.  Nothing can help the boy now; therefore, return to  each person’s own life and move on.