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…
Firstly, both poets use diction to portray the speaker’s relationship with animals.
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
action. The varying viewpoints of the speakers are furtherly described by the authors’ choice of tone. In “Traveling through the Dark,” the tone is caring. After the speaker realizes the dead deer is pregnant, Stafford writes, “Beside the mountain road I hesitated.” The speaker hesitates in this moment as he is undergoing an ethical dilemma in which he must decide whether to try and save the unborn fawn or lessen the physical burden on himself by simply pushing the carcass into the canyon. Furthermore but still before the speaker decides what to do, Stafford writes, “I could hear the wilderness listen. / I thought hard for us all...” In order to make the decision, the speaker takes into consideration the pros and cons of both potential outcomes for all of nature, including himself/herself. The mere fact that the speaker contemplates this indicates his/her caring relationship with nature. In “Woodchucks,” phrases such as “I...drew a bead on the littlest woodchuck’s face,” “Ten minutes later I dropped the mother,” and “Another baby next” reveal a menacing tone. Not only does the speaker in this poem feel no remorse for the taking of animal life, but he/she even feels a slight sense of joy and satisfaction towards their deaths. Finally, both poets include detailed images in order to reveal the connection of the speaker and animals. Stafford writes in “Traveling through the Dark.” “I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red.” This sentence allows the reader to envision a shaken man or woman who is ashamed and guilty of his/her indecisiveness. Because the speaker cares for animals, the speaker knows that it should not even be a question about which path to take. He/she feels that she should be overwhelmingly leaning toward trying to save the fawn. However, the guilt arises as the speaker goes against this position and chooses to dispose of the body to lessen the burden on himself/herself as that would be easier and quicker. The images portrayed in “Woodchucks” do not imply any sense of guilt or shame. Kumin writes, “[The mother woodchuck] / flipflopped in the air and fell, her needle teeth / still hooked in a leaf of early Swiss chard.” This use of light-hearted images describing a horrendous death illustrates how desensitized this speaker is regarding the killing of these animals. In conclusion, the poems “Traveling through the Dark” by William Stafford and “Woodchucks” by Maxine Kumin are both about the interactions between the speaker and animals, specifically the relationship between the two. In “Traveling through the Dark,” the speaker cares for the well-being of animals. Conversely, in “Woodchucks,” the speaker has no regard for animal life and views animals merely as pests. Stafford and Kumin go about portraying these contrasting relationships through resources of language such as diction, tone, and imagery.
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 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.
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 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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
Judith Wright's poem `The Killer' explores the relationship between Humans and Nature, and provides an insight into the primitive instincts which characterize both the speaker and the subject. These aspects of the poem find expression in the irony of the title and are also underlined by the various technical devices employed by the poet.
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.