Metonymy


a figure of speech which is characterized by the substitution of a term naming an object closely associated with the word in mind for the word itself. In this way we commonly speak of the king as the “crown,” an object closely associated with kingship.


Out, Out-
Robert Frost


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 behind 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 them in her apron
To tell them “Supper.” At that word, the saw,
As if to prove saws knew 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!
The boy’s first outcry was a rueful laugh,
As he swung toward them holding up 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 spoiled. “Don’t let him cut my hand off—
The doctor, when he comes. Don’t let him, sister!”
So. But 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 fright.
No one believed. They listened at 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.


Robert Frost’s poem “Out, Out” describes a little boy’s deadly encounter with a saw. A boy is playing with a saw, and when his sister calls him inside for supper he is too young to know to turn the saw off. Instead, he ends up sawing his hand off, causing his blood to go everywhere, and for him to eventually bleed to death. Frost uses metonymy when describing the boy’s blood, “As he swung toward them holding up the hand half in appeal, but half as if to keep the life from spilling”.

Link: Get On Me




"A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes."

~Robert Frost

Robert Frost

      Robert Lee Frost was born in San Francisco on March 26, 1874 to Isabelle Moodie, a Scottish schoolteacher, and William Prescott Frost, Jr., a journalist, local politician and ancestor of Devonshire Frost who had sailed to New Hampshire in 1634. 
      Frost's family lived in California until his father had died when he was just eleven. He moved with his mother and sister to Lawrence, Massachusetts to live with his paternal grandfather. 
      In 1892, Frost graduated from high school and attended Dartmouth College and was a member of the Theta Delta Chi fraternity. While attending college, Frost's first poem, "My Butterfly: An Elegy", was published in the New York Independent, which earned him $15, and had five poems published privately in 1894. 
      In 1895, Frost married a former schoolmate, Elinor White; they had six children. Frost then became a teacher and continued publishing his poems in magazines to support his family. From 1897 to 1899, Frost attended Harvard, but failed to receive a degree. The couple moved to Derry, New Hampshire, where Frost worked as a cobbler, farmer and teacher at Pinkerton Academy and a state normal school in Plymouth. 
       As the couple grew tired of farm life, they needed a change. Robert wanted to move to Vancouver and Elinor England, so England it was. In 1912 the couple sold their farm and moved to the Gloucestershire village of Dymock, where Robert became a full-time poet. The next year, A Boy's Will was published. The book received international fame and contains many of Frost's best-known poems: Mending Wall, The Death of the Hired Man, Home Burial, After Apple-Picking and The Wood-Pile. While in England, Frost made notable contacts with fellow poets as Ezra Pound (who gave Frost his first favorable review by an American), T.E. Hulme and Edward Thomas. 
      Frost returned to America in 1915 and bought a farm in Franconia, New Hampshire to farther his career in writing, teaching and lecturing. From 1916 to 1938, Frost worked as an English professor at Amherst College. He encouraged his students to bring the sound of man to their writings. Also in 1916, Frost was made a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters and published his third collection of verse, Moutain Interval
      In 1920, Frost purchased a farm in South Shaftsbur, Vermont. Robert's wife died in 1938, followed by four of his children. He suffered from long boughts of depression and continual self-doubt. After the death of his wife, he employed Kay Morrison, who he became strongly attracted to. One of his finest love poems, A Witness Tree, was composed for her. 
      During the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy, Frost recited one of his poems, The Gift Outright. Robert also represented the United States on several other official missions. He became known for his poems that interplay voices, such as The Death of the Hired Man, and received numerous literary and academic honors. 
      Robert Lee Frost died on January 29, 1963 and is buried in the Old Bennington Cemetery in Bennington, Vermont.

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