The fragility of life in Frost's Out, out and Mid Term BreakThe poem "Out, out" by Robert Frost is a poem about a young boy who uses a circular saw . When fate decides that the boy's time is up, the saw cuts off his hand and the boy slowly dies. The theme of “Out, out”, as well as “Mid Term Break”, is the fragility of life. “Out, out”, like “Mid-Term Break” focuses on the question of God's randomness in choosing who lives and who does not. This fragility is emphasized, as the title of the poem is a line from the play Macbeth, “Outside, out the short candle, life is but a walking shadow.” This way of representing life as a candle gives the impression that whoever holds this candle could blow it out just as easily, at any time, in any place and just as suddenly. The pace of this poem varies from slow and steady in the beginning to then fast in the middle and then slow and steady again. At the beginning of the poem, the pace is very slow and gentle as the poet introduces us to the future incident. Once the incident occurs, the pace of the poem increases significantly. This increase in pace is related to how quickly the accident occurred among the people who were observing the accident. The tone of the poem evolves around acceptance. Unlike “Mid Term Break”, the poem contains no real sadness or funeral, there seems to be no real emotions shown by the other family members. For example, there is no body mourning the death of this boy. The people who witnessed the accident accepted this accident as they would an earthquake, a natural disaster that cannot be prevented. In this poem, Robert Frost uses many techniques to describe to us his feelings and emotions on the issue of death; these emotions and techniques can be compared to those of Seamus Heaney in the poem "Mid Term Break". In both “Out, out” and “Mid Term Break,” the poets use candles to symbolize life, although the poets use this symbolism differently. In “Mid Term Break,” Seamus Heaney uses candles to symbolize eternal life, while Robert Frost uses candles to represent the vulnerability of our lives in the title of his poem, “Out, out.” In the initial part of this poem, the poet uses the technique of onomatopoeia. This means he uses words that sound like their meaning.