The poem “Traveling through the Dark” by William Stafford portrays the events of a speaker who must hurriedly dispose of a deceased deer. Before disposing of the body, the speaker notices the deer is pregnant and undergoes an ethical dilemma before ultimately getting rid of the carcass. In the poem “Woodchucks” by Maxine Kumin, numerous woodchucks are causing crop damage on the speaker’s farm. The speaker undergoes systematic killing of the woodchucks to rid the problem. Both of these poems describe the relationship between the speaker and animals. However, the two speakers view animals in a very contrasting manner. The speaker in “Traveling through the Dark” cares for the well-being of animals while the speaker in “Woodchucks”has no regard for animal life. Stafford and Humin reveal these opposing viewpoints through literary devices such as diction, tone, and imagery. …show more content…
When the speaker in “Traveling through the Dark” first encounters the dead deer’s body, he does not know it is pregnant. However, when the speaker does realize this, the unborn fawn is described as “waiting” and “alive.” Because Stafford chose these words, the reader can infer that the speaker cares for the well-being of the fawn. In the speaker’s mind, the fawns waiting for someone to save it. Opposingly, the diction used by Kumin in “Woodchucks” aides in indicating how hell-bent the speaker is on ridding the woodchucks. When only one woodchuck is left, the speaker “dreams” of shooting it. The choice of the word “dreams” has a connotation of longing and yearning to do an action beyond that of just thinking about doing said
The author uses diction in the passages to signify the effect of the author¡¯s meaning in story and often sway readers to interpret ideas in one way or another. The man in the story arrives to a ¡°[dry] desert¡± where he accosts an animal with ¡°long-range attack¡± and ¡°powerful fangs.¡± The author creates a perilous scene between the human and animal in order to show that satisfaction does not come from taking lives. With instincts of silence and distrust, both of them freeze in stillness like ¡°live wire.¡± In addition, the man is brought to the point where animal¡¯s ¡°tail twitched,¡± and ¡°the little tocsin sounded¡± and also he hears the ¡°little song of death.¡± With violence ready to occur, the man tries to protect himself and others with a hoe, for his and their safety from the Rattler. The author criticizes how humans should be ¡°obliged not to kill¡±, at least himself, as a human. The author portrays the story with diction and other important techniques, such as imagery, in order to influence the readers with his significant lesson.
William Faulkner overwhelms his audience with the visual perceptions that the characters experience, making the reader feel utterly attached to nature and using imagery how a human out of despair can make accusations. "If I jump off the porch I will be where the fish was, and it all cut up into a not-fish now. I can hear the bed and her face and them and I can...
Poetry Analysis Maxine Kumin’s poem Woodchucks is not simply a farmer’s irritation over a couple of pesky woodchucks. The subject does have to do with humans having the tendency to become violent when provoked. However, the theme of the poem takes a much darker path, showing how it only takes something small to turn any normal humane person into a heartless murderer. The theme evolves by using dark references to the Holocaust and basic Darwinist principles. These references are made through connotation, tone, allusions, and metaphors.
observation, a beautifully detailed manner of writing, a love for the beauty of nature, and an interest in how people interact with the natural world. Like Leopold, Bishop examines human interactions with nature on both the personal and the ecological level. On the individual level, a hunter’s contact with the animal he or she is hunting changes his or her attitude toward nature in both Bishop’s poem “The Fish” and Leopold’s essay “Thinking Like a Mountain.” On the larger level, both Bishop in her poem “The Mountain” and Leopold throughout the Sand County Almanac envision the role of human beings in relation to the rest of the natural world as one of exploration and interpretation through science and art.
Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek features various creatures struggling to survive in the perilous habitats of Tinker Creek. From her own experiences living near the creek, she presents detailed descriptions of the deaths of different insects and animals, mainly due to attacks from other creatures of the same species. Throughout the distinct chapters of her book, she stalks and studies the creatures to construct an overarching theme of life. Dillard argues that in order for any creature to sustain its life, it must cause death to others, even if it means killing members of its own group. In an attempt to expose this horror of reality, Dillard astonishingly employs the muskrat, often thought as a peaceful creature found enjoying the calm water. By presenting the muskrat as a victim of its predators as well as a predator of its own species, Dillard reveals that even the most peace-loving creatures, like the muskrat, are both the objects and the subjects of death.
Distinctive voices offer many different types of perspectives of the world. This is expressed through the texts “Lady feeding the cats” and “Wombat" written by Douglas Stewart and“Shawshank redemption” also written by Frank Darabont. These notions are applied through exploration of humanity and connections between humanity and the nature. The unique interaction of the world offers us a better understanding of these perceptions.
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 this poem called “Creatures” by the author Billy Collins there is a literary device called a metaphor when the reader is reading this poem. A metaphor is a comparison of two unlike things without using the words like or as. In lines one (1) through...
Nowlan's sympathy for the moose and his disgust for mankind is forcefully expressed in a natural free verse. This poem calls us to rethink the arrogant self-righteousness we hold toward Nature. By fencing ourselves in, perhaps we shut ourselves away from those qualities necessary to make us truly human.
John Updike’s poem “The Great Scarf of Birds” expresses the varying emotions the narrator experiences as he witnesses certain events from nature. His narration of the birds throughout the poem acts as numerous forms of imagery and symbolism concerning him and his life, and this becomes a recollection of the varying emotional stances he comes to terms with that he has experienced in his life. These changes are so gradually and powerfully expressed because of a fluent use of diction and figurative language, specifically symbolism and simile, and aided by organization.
In John Updike’s poem “The Great Scarf of Birds”, he uses diction and figurative speech to depict the beautiful autumn season to show how inspiring and uplifting nature is to man. Updike chooses autumn as the season to set his story in because generally, it is the season that has the most vivid vibrant colors in nature such as the ripe apples which are described as “red fish in the nets (limbs)”. (Line 3) Updike paints the picture of the beauty of nature with the simile about the apples to show the reader what a powerful effect nature has on man. Updike goes on to discuss the elm trees that were “swaying in the sky” (Line 7) and the “dramatic straggling v’s” of geese. Updike uses these descriptive portrayals of na...
"Everyone is influenced by their childhood. The things I write about and illustrate come from a vast range of inputs, from the earliest impressions of a little child, others from things I saw yesterday and still others from completely out of the blue, though no doubt they owe their arrival to some stimulus, albeit unconscious. I have a great love of wildlife, inherited from my parents, which show through in my subject matter, though always with a view to the humorous—not as a reflective device but as a reflection of my own fairly happy nature.
In ‘All the Pretty Horses’ Luis states ‘among men there was no such communion as among horses and the notion that men can be understood at all was probably an illusion’, by this he means the relationship man has with nature is totally unique, it is sacred; the relationship between men is a misapprehension. In some respects the reader may agree with the statement because it is true, man’s relationship with animals and nature is fairly simple compared to man’s relationship amongst each other which is far more complex due to conflict of opinion and other complications. John Grady Cole’s relationship with Alejandra faced much turmoil and complication, one of the biggest issues they faced was the fact Alejandra’s family condemned their relationship and forbid her to be with him. To a certain extent John’s romance with Alejandra mirrors Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in respects to their forbidden love, however their story does not end in tragedy. Wordsworth shows nature to be more of a companion for man in ‘The Solitary Reaper’. The woman reaps the crops alone in the field singing with a voice so ‘thrilling’ it resonates ‘Long after it was heard no more’. Although she is lonely, she is wholly reliant upon the sustenance she receives and the relationship she has with nature. The poet proceeds to compare her to the Cuckoo and the Nightingale stating ‘No Nightingale did ever chaunt more welcome notes to weary bands’ being compared to birds with such beautiful song surely displays her oneness with nature. Unlike the ‘maiden’ Victor tries to control and dominate nature, this resentment could stem from the fact his mother died of the fever, making him go to extreme lengths in constructing this figure from different body parts to create a cre...
Richard Wilbur's recent poem 'Mayflies' reminds us that the American Romantic tradition that Robert Frost most famously brought into the 20th century has made it safely into the 21st. Like many of Frost's short lyric poems, 'Mayflies' describes one person's encounter with an ordinary but easily overlooked piece of nature'in this case, a cloud of mayflies spotted in a 'sombre forest'(l.1) rising over 'unseen pools'(l.2),'made surprisingly attractive and meaningful by the speaker's special scrutiny of it. The ultimate attraction of Wilbur's mayflies would appear to be the meaning he finds in them. This seems to be an unremittingly positive poem, even as it glimpses the dark subjects of human isolation and mortality, perhaps especially as it glimpses these subjects. In this way the poem may recall that most persistent criticism of Wilbur's work, that it is too optimistic, too safe. The poet-critic Randall Jarrell, though an early admirer of Wilbur, once wrote that 'he obsessively sees, and shows, the bright underside of every dark thing'?something Frost was never accused of (Jarrell 332). Yet, when we examine the poem closely, and in particular the series of comparisons by which Wilbur elevates his mayflies into the realm of beauty and truth, the poem concedes something less ?bright? or felicitous about what it finally calls its 'joyful . . . task' of poetic perception and representation (l.23).
...fascination with the animal world. Children, they are permitted to love things they do not understand. But coming to these books as an adult, and loaded down with knowledge of their author’s life, with its longings and fears, one cannot avoid reading them as fables about E.B White’s own life” (Epstein 380). Reading about the tales and adventures of animals is different to a child compared to an adult. Children are fascinated with animals, but do not understand the hidden meanings, whereas the adults do. After knowing about White’s life it is easy to understand that these three books are pieces of his life that he is telling from a different point of view, the view of animals. White’s writing is an expression of himself (Sampson 530). “Hardly any literate American has not benefitted from his humor, his nonsense, his creativity, and his engaging wisdom” (Hasley 526).