Finally, "Silence"

I thought I had stumbled across a poem of Marianne Moore's that was maybe less complex than the majority of her work, in "Silence." I was woefully wrong. At first glance everything about this poem is different from the anthologised material we had to digest. The jagged line breaks are missing. Although it is often hard to find, almost all of her verses utilize end rhyme. There is no discernible end rhyme here. And good luck uncovering meter in this one. So I dove right into the meaning, which again appeared to be rather straightforward and accessible.

"Superior people" know when it's time to leave, or less obviously, when to shut their mouths. They don't need to be prompted, or given constant guidance (lines 2-3). In a word (or two), they are "self reliant." A superior person's understanding will become apparent, not in silence exactly, but in "restraint," in not speaking. Moore makes sure to emphasize the difference. She ends by commenting on the quote: "Make my house your inn," saying that inns are not residences. This seemed obvious enough as an inn is somewhere one stays for a short period of time and goes on his way. It's a clever way of telling one's guest that he is welcome, but not for too long. I should have been content at that point, closed the proverbial book on this poem and made a sandwich or something. But no, I had to read it again, and damn it, now I'm hungry.

Further examination revealed what I had missed on previous readings, that only two and a half lines (15 words total) are not quoted from outside sources; in this case overheard pieces of conversation. I also didn't pay attention to the fact that there are three distinct voices speaking: the father, the daughter (who Moore has overheard), and Moore herself. Notes on the poem indicate that Moore has embellished the first quote. So not only are we hearing Moore's voice overall, as it is her poem, but embedded within the voice of the father as well. Within the "voice" of the father also is the voice of the daughter since, although Moore is quoting the father, the words she uses are those of the daughter. Confused yet? Wondering what all of these voices are actually saying? Yeah, me too. If anyone out there has some insight - please, please help!

Here's the best I can do with "Silence." Dad realized early on the genius of his daughter, be it Moore, or the overheard woman, I don't care, I have a headache now. So he is reminding the girl, in a way that a "superior person" would appreciate, that children (especially female children) should be seen and not heard. It was merely a way for him to maintain control of his home and retain his intellectual authority. This is why silence becomes restraint in line 12. Possibly, the "self reliance" from line five foreshadows "Make my house your inn." He's not so subtly telling his daughter to shut up and move on, literally and figuratively.

I'm getting some snacks . . . and an aspirin.

A Cold Frost?

Robert Frost was not a personable man. We know this from biography, and it radiates from his poems. The grade school image of the nature loving, road less traveling poet that we have all been force fed gets turned inside out upon a mature examination of his work. This is a good thing. It makes Frost a rounded human being. It makes us re-read and re-think. We get to see his dark side, which has been lurking in many of his poems; right under our birch swinging, apple picking, woods stopping noses. Once we as readers are finally tuned in to this aspect of Frost's work however, we run the risk of seeking it everywhere, in every poem. Sometimes we are so focused on feeling our way through the dark room of the poem, that we don't see the sunlight blazing through the open window. I think "Out, Out--" is one of those poems that we want to be dark, when in reality it is, well just reality.

Certainly, this isn't a happy poem. While cutting wood with a buzz-saw, a boy accidentally cuts his hand off, and then dies as a result of his injury. Downbeat? Yes. Dark? I think not. One must keep in mind certain facts when reading this poem

1. This was a farm in the early 1900s. Every person in the family worked the farm. Their entire existence depended on the farm. If it didn't continue to run successfully, they didn't eat, let alone pay bills.
2. Frost titles this poem in reference to a passage from Shakespeare's Macbeth. It's Act V Scene V, lines 17-28. I'm not quoting it, and shame on you if you don't have a copy of Shakespeare's complete works in your collection. I will paraphrase though. Life is short, full of fuss and turmoil, and ultimately meaningless.

Now that we are caught up, we can tackle the last two lines of this poem. A lot of readers are offended at how callous the family of this boy are. How can they just go back to work after such a tragedy? Because they have to. Because if they shut their lives down and spend a day, two days, a week grieving, then the farm suffers and they jeopardize their existence. They are now short one person, and his work has to be absorbed by the other members of the family.

I will go as far as saying that the boy let himself die. He did not cut his own hand off. He technically did not commit suicide. Once he knew his hand was gone; once "He saw all spoiled" (line25), he knew he was of no value to the farm any more. So he mentally and physically stopped fighting against his injury - he allowed himself to die so that he would not be a burden to the operation; he would not be a non-contributing mouth to feed. I see the boy as a self-sacrificing hero.

I love the impersonal nature of this poem. The boy, the sister, the doctor, the watcher, "those that lifted eyes" (line 4), and "they" (the family) are never assigned names. The most personified thing in the poem is the buzz-saw with its snarling and rattling. Upon hearing that supper was ready the saw was also hungry, and it was not shy about what it wanted to eat.

Back to our Shakespeare reference: the boy represents the brevity of life, "brief candle." The saw represents the "sound and fury." His death was meaningless, "signifying nothing."