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Theories of grief and loss
Poem analysis techniques
Poem analysis techniques
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William Stafford in my mind, a visionary seeking to enlighten us through words he wrote in the poem, he talks his travels down a dark road only to find a dead deer on the road. In the poem he talks about how he moved the deer out of the dark road and pushing it down a hill. The poem is great at making you visualize what is happen as you read it. In this essay I will dissect the poem’s deep and dark stanza’s and state what the poem means. William Edgar Stafford was born in Hutchinson, Kansas, on January 17, 1974. Stafford grew up with an appreciation for nature and books. With this appreciation for nature he came up with one of his poem traveling though the dark which is based on a road in nature. In the title traveling though the dark he …show more content…
We now know that we are in the real world in a natural setting a place where deer’s run. Also we know that the dark is nothing more than the cover of darkness in the night. Now that the dark is painted into our heads it will help us to visualize the poems significance. As we go through the poem he states that he sees a dead deer, “Traveling through the dark I found a deer dead on the edge of the Wilson River road” (1-2). Towards the end of the stanza he says “It is usually best to roll them into the canyon: that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead” (3-4). What he is saying is that one needs to move away from any situation which might not be ideal before harm comes aboard. He is calm and controlled and does not get overly excited thus keeping his emotions intact. In the second stanza he says “By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing; she had stiffened already, almost cold. I dragged her off” (5-8). In this stanza he is giving great details of what he is doing and what’s happing to the deer. When reading this stanza is like watching a movie, you can see the tail lights and you can see the deer and you can see him pulling the deer out of the road. Also in the second stanza he says “she was large in the belly” (8). This must have meant that the dead dear was …show more content…
“The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights; under the hood purred the steady engine. I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red; around our group I could hear the wilderness listen” (13-16). As I read it seems like the car is a bit personified. “The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights” (13). The car is a metaphor for the living, the lowered lights are more like sad eyes, mindful of the death behind it, and it’s looking ahead down the dark road of life, away from the problems of death. Also “under the hood purred the steady engine” (14) it brings to mind the steady, beating heart of the living that surrounds. In this line, “I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust” (15) like its breath in the nights air, which adds to the personification of the car, being alive. “I thought hard for us all—my only swerving—,then pushed her over the edge into the river”(17-18). When he says he "thought hard for us all"(17) he is talking about him, the doe, and the fawn, but after reading it more careful, I find he’s talking about "us all" so that includes humanity as well, or even all that is living. So he is thinking hard about life and death, and about mortality when writing this poem. The poem as a lot of imagery in it, the poem gives you a visual of what’s actually happing as you read it. Stafford poem traveling though the dark is about life and death being connected. It’s also
In the first stanza, first line; I saw two trees embracing, this means that there is a couple that is in love. In the second and third line we see that the male is weaker “one leaned on the other, as if to throw her down” and in the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh line we notice that the female has the strength, willpower and is dominating. In the second stanza, line one, two and three we see that the female being dominant makes the male feel broken and intimidated. In line four “the most wind-warped, you could see”, hear we see that there is a major problem between the two.
William Stafford was at peace with himself. In the poem he knows that there are questions for him, and he is willing to answer. He just needed some time to adjust to whatever came his way. William puts himself as an example of a river and a natural force of nature; like a river and it’s current, there is a flow and it will continue for a long period of time.
To start of, the poem has an appeal of imagination and has many features that show this. First of, we have numerous metaphors, "I am a thousand winds that blow" and "I am the diamond glints on snow" are examples. These metaphors are indirectly comparing him to the greatness, to the amounts of them, trying to relate to us by telling us how he is everywhere. He might not be here in person but he is all around as used in the metaphors the wind, in the snow, in sunlight that ripens the grains everywhere. Second, the poem has the symbol of "do not stand at my grave and weep/ I am not there" this is a symbol that works on many levels and has many meaning. The first meaning is that he is saying he has past away so therefore he is not there. Not there not meaning physically but virtually. Thus meaning that his body is there but his soul is not. His soul is everywhere. This takes us back to the metaphors used wi...
O. Henry once said, “The true adventurer goes forth aimless and uncalculating to meet and greet unknown fate.” The poem goes a lot a deeper than the words on the page, the items and decisions within it really make you see things differently. Three symbols really stuck out to me; adolescence, sadness, and timelessness.
The long lines that open the poem represent the movement of the bus through the landscape. When it stops moving to pick up the “lone traveler” in the sixth stanza, it stops the long sentence that has been running since the start of the poem. As the bus resumes and picks up speed, the lines follow suit. It is night, and therefore dark as the bus enters the tree line of the thick woods of New Brunswick. Here, an important change occurs, when a drastic landscape shifts occurs;
Later doing that time a family adopted Edgar and educated him, during that time so he developed an interest in literature and poetry. Next Edgar transferred from state to state from job to the other, then Married one of his cousin, the lady was in very young age, there was dragged between his and her age she dies at a young age. During Edgar’s life he writes many poem, some of his most popular one were The Raven and The Cask of Amontillado.
In the dim light, he sees that the dead deer is a doe and she is “almost cold” so we understand that the deer was hit recently (line 7). When dragging the body to the canyon’s edge, the speaker mentions the deer’s belly is enlarged. The tone of the stanza is distanced, and the speaker seems to be distracted and unaffected by the “heap” that he must move off the road (line 6).
In a single year deer cause the death of 200 people and four billion dollars in damage (insurancejournal.com). This all could be prevented if people just took the time to move the deer off the road. This could save the lives of many.This is exactly what the speaker in William E Stafford's “Traveling through the dark” is going through. Although it may appear cruel to some people the speaker's choice to push the doe over the cliff because it prevents human deaths and it saved the fawn from unnecessary suffering.
The author is able to so descriptively express this common event by dedicating each stanza to a different perspective involved. The author begins the poem with a protruding inexplicit situation, captivating the reader’s interest and provoking curiosity to help create imagery. Much like a thesis of an essay, the author states “blurring to sheer verb” at the end of the first stanza, he restates the true simple nature of this topic. Wilbur next describes the surrounding in reaction to the fire truck, showing the reader the flamboyancy and power of the fire truck. At the end of the second stanza, the author italicizes the line “thought is degraded action!” This could be interpreted as the speaker’s thoughts, suggesting that those ringing bells remind him that thinking is but the inferior form of action. In the third stanza, the author focuses on the effects of the fire truck on the speaker, helping relate the reader to the thoughts of the speaker as he experiences this event. Corresponding to the ending of the second stanza, the speaker is reminded of the true nature of thoughts, thus letting go of his worries “I stand here purged of nuance and my mind a blank. All I was brooding upon has taken wing.”
“Black Awakening in Capitalist America”, Robert Allen’s critical analysis of the structure of the U.S.’s capitalist system, and his views of the manner in which it exploits and feeds on the cultures, societies, and economies of less influential peoples to satiate its ever growing series of needs and base desires. From a rhetorical analysis perspective, Allen describes and supports the evidence he sees for the theory of neocolonialism, and what he sees as the black people’s place within an imperial society where the power of white influence reigns supreme. Placing the gains and losses of the black people under his magnifying glass, Allen describes how he sees the ongoing condition of black people as an inevitable occurrence in the spinning cogs of the capitalist machine.
The whole poem is about an event of a mother who takes her children to a park. While at the park, she runs into a man that she used to have feelings for and they begin to discuss how their lives have changed and the speaker’s children. The conversation between the two is short and is suggested by the statement, “But for the grace of god…” that the man thanks god that he is not involved with the hustle and bustle of being involved in the woman’s life. As the conversation ends and the man exits the park the woman states, “They have eaten me alive”. This statement gives the reader a greater understanding of what the woman goes through and what she has given up when she
In "Death of a Naturalist" we find that the poem is about being out in
He is writing the poem as if he were an object of the earth, and what it is like to once live and then die only to be reborn. On the other hand, Wordsworth takes images of meadows, fields, and birds and uses them to show what gives him life. Life being whatever a person needs to move on, and without those objects, they can't have life. Wordsworth does not compare himself to these things like Shelley, but instead uses them as an example of how he feels about the stages of living. Starting from an infant to a young boy into a man, a man who knows death is coming and can do nothing about it because it's part of life.
Paraphrase- In the poem, "The White Doe," the author is speaking of an encounter with a female deer. The encounter takes place in a glade, which is an opening in the forest. It is a cold morning when the author first spots the deer under the shade of a tree in between two streams. The author raves at the site of the magnificent animal. Intrigued by the deer, he follows it throughout the morning like a greedy person searches for treasure. After following the animal, the author realizes that the deer does not want to be touched because a higher authority wishes it to remain undisturbed. Noontime soon came, and satisfaction did not come to the author's tired eyes. The author falls into a stream at the end, and the beautiful white doe disappears.
The color symbolism of the "green bay" lets us know that the speaker refers to the young and new generation of yesterday. Stanza four's reference to "wild men" concerns the living part of life. It reveals the fact that men often learn too late to change their actions. The fifth stanza depicts the dying part of life in which the senses deteriorate. How the speaker depicts that "Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay" refers to the bright light many often reported seeing in near-death experiences. The blind may once again see this sign that death knocks on one's door. In the line "Do not go gentle into that good night," the speaker refers to the night as good. Night replaces death in a metaphoric manner. The reference to that "good night" displays how good death may appear and how easily one attains it. This shows the reason the speaker persists for his father to hold on to life and not "go gentle into that good night." Likewise, to "rage against the dying of the light" as the speaker pleads shows a similar appeal by the son. The dying of the light refers to life as a light that shines to prove existence. If the light dies, then the life has ceased to exist. This poem, in villanelle form, artfully implies the universal theme of death's inevitability. The son's pleads to his father and the father's pleads with death show conflicts that may arise in one at his deathbed. This man, the grave man, finishes the remainder of his life. From the stages of his life, hefinally reaches this one. The poem ends ambiguously hinting the acceptance of death by the father and the