Friday, December 30, 2011

What are the similarities between the poems "Out, Out -" by Robert Frost and "Empty-Cradle Sad" by Bette Wolf Duncan?

1. Both the
poems are based on true life
incidents:


Frost's poem is based on a true
incident which is believed to have happened in April 1915; Raymond Fitzgerald, the son
of Frost’s friend and neighbour, lost his hand to a buzz saw and bled so profusely that
he went into shock, and died of cardiac arrest in spite of the best efforts of the
doctor.  Frost’s title invites us to compare the poem’s shocking story with Macbeth’s
speech on learning of his wife’s death:


The key to
understanding the theme of Frost's "Out, out-" lies in the intertextual reference to
Shakespeare's "Macbeth" Act V Sc.5, where Macbeth
soliloquizes bitterly on the futility of life after he learns of the death of his
wife:


readability="14">

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.



Frost's poem
ironically comments on the death of a small boy who dies tragically at such a young age
because of an accident when he was sawing wood.  His life is compared to a "brief
candle."


Bette Wolf Duncan's poem deals with an incident
which took place in the life of her late husband's grandmother. The mother in the poem
is her husband's grandmother and the infant is her
father-in-law.


2. Out door
work:
Frost's poem describes a group of people sawing wood. Bette Wolf
Duncan's poem describes the mother engaged in agricultural
operations:


readability="7">

Down below, with seeds and hoe,
Emma
sowed the garden
ground.



3.
Children are at the center of both the poems.
In Frost's poem it was a
small boy and  in Bette Wolf Duncan's poem it was a new born
baby.

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