Literary Theory

In the poem “Mending Wall” Frost is trying to show how people act. He is using the symbol of a wall to illustrate how some people think that the only way to get alone with each other is to not associate or get in each other’s way at all. Frost tied setting, symbols, language, and characters together to get this point across. The setting is springtime in a field, at the boundary line of two properties. This is fitting because springtime usually represents happiness, renewing friendships and hope. The narrating character expects this renewing friendship with his neighbor and is surprised when the only reply he gets from his neighbor is “Good fences make good neighbors.” All of the imagery that frost uses in the poem are things that you would find in the springtime. The narrating character is trying to figure out a reason for why people need to put up barriers. He describes how he grows apple trees and his neighbor grows pine trees and how the trees are not going to get up and walk across the property line lie cows would. This is showing how even though people may have different opinions and ideas they don’t necessarily have to impose on each other or harm each other. Frost also uses dialog between the two characters to get his point across. The neighbor always just says, “Good Fences make good neighbors.” He never gives an explanation for why this is so. On the other hand the narrating character keeps trying to find reasons for why this saying is true. But all he can do is find reasons for why this doesn’t make sense. The poem ends by describing a stone-age savage building a wall stone by stone. This suggests that the only reason frost could come up with for why people build walls that keep them from having relationships is that it is just a tradition that has been handed down generation to generation and doesn’t have any real reason for it.

Feminist Interpretation of "Out, Out, -"

This poem is very stereotypical towards women and their roles in society. In the poem, the sister is wearing and apron and cooking supper. This is basically saying that women belong in the kitchen cooking while the men are out working. A feminist would be outraged by this and would say that it is not true.

"Out, Out - "

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!
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.