The poem, “Traveling through the Dark” by William Stafford, offers readers a story about a tragic, but common encounter between man and animal. The speaker of the poem is faced with a difficult decision when he discovers a dead deer in the road. “Woodchucks,” by Maxine Kumin, also presents the audience with a poem about humans and animals; however, her poem takes a darker approach on the subject. The speaker is trying to eradicate all of the woodchucks from his garden. In the two poems, tone, imagery, personification, and allusion, are used in order to reveal the intricate relationship between humans and animals.
The speaker’s tone at the beginning of “Traveling through the Dark” is one of detachment; however, the speaker adopts a more sympathetic tone later in the poem. The speaker’s objectivity
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highlights itself when he mentions that, “It is usually best to roll them into the canyon.” But the phrases, “her side brought me to reason” and “beside the mountain road I hesitated” in the third stanza, indicate a more compassionate shift in the speaker’s attitude towards the deer. The quote, “I thought for all of use… then pushed her over the edge into the river” illuminates the speaker’s uncertainty over the situation; however, he realizes that the best solution for everyone (the doe, fawn, and other drivers on the road) is to dump the carcass of the deer into the river. The tone in “Woodchucks” is very dark and twisted. The words, “gassing” and “thrilling to the feel of the .22” create an unpleasant and unnerving tone. The way the narrator describes his plans to kill the woodchucks and his obsessive behavior to exterminate the creatures is almost comical, but it still gives the poem a very sinister quality: “I, a lapsed pacifist fallen from grace.” Both poems center around a grim and unsettling subject matter; however, the way the two authors developed the poems is very different. Unlike “Woodchucks,” “Traveling through the Dark” addresses the relationship between humans and nature in a very realistic and humane way.
The tactile and visual imagery the speaker uses to describe the dead doe -“large in belly”, “my fingers touching her side”, and “her side was still warm”- presents the doe in a way that is considerate and dignifying. It is obvious the speaker is genuinely saddened about passing of the deer; the speaker’s sympathy heightens when he realizes that there is fawn inside the belly of the doe. The speaker of “Woodchucks,” on the other hand, does not have same regard for animal life as the speaker of “Traveling through the Dark” does. The visual imagery the speaker of “Woodchucks” uses to describe his killing spree of the woodchucks in the yard is very appalling: “She flipflopped in the air and fell…” Both poems address the moral dilemma man sometime has to face when he comes into contact with nature. The narrator in “Traveling through the Dark” feels like he has an ethical responsibility to the deer and nature; in contrast, the speaker of “Woodchucks” does not have any qualms about executing animals that he considers to be
pests. Both Stafford and Kumin use personification in order to highlight certain aspects of their poems. Stafford uses personification to describe the factors which influenced the speaker during his hesitation. The narrator almost feels pressured by his car to make a decision about the dead doe; he “[stands] in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red”. On the other hand, “I could hear the wilderness listening” signifies that nature is waiting to see what the speaker will choose to do. Kumin uses personification- “…the bullets’ neat noses”- in order to convey her speaker’s joy and desire to eliminate all of the small animals. Unlike “Traveling through the Dark”, “Woodchucks” has allusions. The speaker realizes that he can no longer be a pacifist as stated in line fifteen; if he desires to fulfill the idea of social Darwinism he must be willing to create the change: “…puffed with Darwinian pieties for killing”. Kumin references gassing in lines one and thirty, “gassed underground the quiet Nazi way”, which is an obvious allusion to the Holocaust. She does this in order to blame the woodchucks for forcing the speaker to revoke his pacifist ways because the rodents did not die quickly and efficiently underground like they were supposed to. The mention of “Darwinian” and the “Nazi way” also creates another layer of astonishment and discomfort to the poem. Due to the fact that most readers know what Darwinism and the Holocaust was, the audience has a better connection and understanding of the poem. In their poems, Stafford and Kumin describe the complex relationship between humans and nature. In doing so, the authors not only describe the consequences of such encounters, but also the moral choice a person must decide upon when they are presented with a situation similar to “Traveling through the Dark” or even “Woodchucks.” It is obvious that both poets view the relationship between man and animal very differently.
In the narrative poem “Cautionary Tale of Girls and Birds of Prey” the author, Sandy Longhorn, tells the story of a young girl who is afraid of a hawk, and her inconsiderate father who doesn’t take her concerns seriously. The story shows how her father is determined to get rid of her fear of the hawk, because he thinks it is both foolish and childish. The daughter very well knows the capability of the hawk, however her father doesn’t acknowledge it until it is too late. In the poem, Longhorn uses alliteration and rhyme to help explore the theme of how being inconsiderate towards others can in the end hurt you as much as it hurts them. The poem takes place on a little farm where the girl and her father live with all of their livestock.
In his poem “The Great Scarf of Birds”, John Updike uses a flock of birds to show that man can be uplifted by observing nature. Updike’s conclusion is lead up to with the beauty of autumn and what a binding spell it has on the two men playing golf. In Updike’s conclusion and throughout the poem, he uses metaphors, similes, and diction to show how nature mesmerizes humans.
The purpose of the poem was to express my interests of nature and how I felt and what I experienced when I was in the woods at that time. There’s also that life and death aspect in this poem, in which the bird has the lizard in his mouth and also by the word “fire”.
The timeline carries on chronologically, the intense imagery exaggerated to allow the poem to mimic childlike mannerisms. This, subjectively, lets the reader experience the adventure through the young speaker’s eyes. The personification of “sunset”, (5) “shutters”, (8) “shadows”, (19) and “lamplights” (10) makes the world appear alive and allows nothing to be a passing detail, very akin to a child’s imagination. The sunset, alive as it may seem, ordinarily depicts a euphemism for death, similar to the image of the “shutters closing like the eyelids”
This essay is anchored on the goal of looking closer and scrutinizing the said poem. It is divided into subheadings for the discussion of the analysis of each of the poem’s stanzas.
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.
It is often said that a dog is a man’s best friend. In Cormac McCarthy’s novel, The Crossing, a deep affection and fondness are established between man and animal. In a particular excerpt from the novel, Cormac illustrates the protagonist’s sorrow that was prompted from the wolf’s tragic death. As blood stiffens his trousers, the main character seeks to overcome the cold weather and fatigue with hopes of finding the perfect burial site for the wolf. McCarthy uses detailed descriptions and terminology in his novel, The Crossing, to convey the impact of the wolf’s death on the protagonist, a sad experience incorporated with religious allusions and made unique by the main character’s point of view.
“One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.” Said by Voltaire can describe the two poems, Seventeen by Andrew Hudgins and Traveling through the Dark by William Stafford. Both poems are written in a prose fashion but mean so much more than the written words. At a glance, the poems both seem to be about the tragic deaths of animals; however, the poems differ in their themes of growing up in Seventeen and the intermixing of technology with man and nature in Traveling through the Dark.
SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Long Day's Journey into Night.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. n.d.. Web. 6 Jan. 2014. .
... Nature, including human beings, is `red in tooth and claw'; we are all `killers' in one way or another. Also, the fear which inhabits both human and snake (allowing us, generally, to avoid each other), and which acts as the catalyst for this poem, also precipitates retaliation. Instinct, it seems, won't be gainsaid by morality; as in war, our confrontation with Nature has its origins in some irrational `logic' of the soul. The intangibility of fear, as expressed in the imagery of the poem, is seen by the poet to spring from the same source as the snake, namely the earth - or, rather, what the earth symbolizes, our primitive past embedded in our subconsciouness. By revealing the kinship of feelings that permeates all Nature, Judith Wright universalises the experience of this poem.
Nature is often a focal point for many author’s works, whether it is expressed through lyrics, short stories, or poetry. Authors are given a cornucopia of pictures and descriptions of nature’s splendor that they can reproduce through words. It is because of this that more often than not a reader is faced with multiple approaches and descriptions to the way nature is portrayed. Some authors tend to look at nature from a deeper and personal observation as in William Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”, while other authors tend to focus on a more religious beauty within nature as show in Gerard Manley Hopkins “Pied Beauty”, suggesting to the reader that while to each their own there is always a beauty to be found in nature and nature’s beauty can be uplifting for the human spirit both on a visual and spiritual level.
“A Bird came down the Walk,” was written in c. 1862 by Emily Dickinson, who was born in 1830 and died in 1886. This easy to understand and timeless poem provides readers with an understanding of the author’s appreciation for nature. Although the poem continues to be read over one hundred years after it was written, there is little sense of the time period within which it was composed. The title and first line, “A Bird came down the Walk,” describes a common familiar observation, but even more so, it demonstrates how its author’s creative ability and artistic use of words are able to transform this everyday event into a picture that results in an awareness of how the beauty in nature can be found in simple observations. In a step like narrative, the poet illustrates the direct relationship between nature and humans. The verse consists of five stanzas that can be broken up into two sections. In the first section, the bird is eating a worm, takes notice of a human in close proximity and essentially becomes frightened. These three stanzas can easily be swapped around because they, for all intents and purposes, describe three events that are able to occur in any order. Dickinson uses these first three stanzas to establish the tone; the tone is established from the poet’s literal description and her interpretive expression of the bird’s actions. The second section describes the narrator feeding the bird some crumbs, the bird’s response and its departure, which Dickinson uses to elaborately illustrate the bird’s immediate escape. The last two stanzas demonstrate the effect of human interaction on nature and more specifically, this little bird, so these stanzas must remain in the specific order they are presented. Whereas most ...
The poem in brief summary allows us to experience an outsider’s view of the death of Lucy Gray and her parents’ grief. The character narrating the poem tells the story of Lucy, a girl who was sent by her father with a lantern to light the way home, for her mother in town. On her way to town a snow storm hits and Lucy is never found neither dead nor alive. The fact that a stranger is narrating the story as opposed to one of the parents telling the story, allows the reader to witness the tragedy of Lucy Gray without feeling too tangled up in the parents’ grief. By having an outsider who is in no way involved in the tragedy tell the story, the writer of the poem William Wordsworth, gives the reader an objective point of view on the tragedy as well as room to relate the reader’s own experience to the poem without feeling uncomfortable. Had the poem lacked objectivity the reader would have surely felt uncomfortable and stifled by emotions of the parents’ or a parent telling the story of their daughter’s death. As well as that, the objectiveness of the stranger narrating gives the reader almost a communal experience. It is as if the reader was in a small town one day, and a local just happened to...