Traveling Through The Dark By William Stafford Analysis

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

seems to be traveling to a destination in the dark which seemed impossible. It would be difficult to see where to go therefore difficult to reach where you’re going. What I assume he trying to say that it’s an unknown, a feeling of something missing or evil.
When the title is repeated in the first line, the dark gets more specific.

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

pregnant.
In the third stanza he says “My fingers touching her side brought me the reason—her side was warm” (9-10) which meant she died recently. Also in the stanza it states “her fawn lay there waiting, alive, still, never to be born” (10-11). This tells us as readers that the baby deer is still alive inside the mother deer and that it has not came out of the dead mother’s stomach yet. Toward the end of the stanza he says “Beside that mountain road I hesitated” (12). As I read this, I was trying to understand what he meant by saying this. I concluded he felt that he didn’t want to push the dead mother deer down the hill because it had a baby deer still alive inside of her. Pity and compassion in life when faced with difficult situations one has to do what he or she feels is right in their heart.
The fourth stanza is a stanza that tried to take the readers mind off the dead mother deer.

“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

about making very difficult decisions as they come to you at an unknown time.