Traveling Through The Dark Poem Analysis

In the poem, “Traveling Through the Dark”, the author, William Stafford, uses many poetic devices that enhance the true meaning of the poem. The poetic devices found in the poem include poem’s persona, tone, word choice, imagery, symbolism, and comparisons. Stafford uses these poetic devices to help the readers to experience and visualize the situation that the narrator is going through.
To understand a poem you have to know the setting, the poem’s persona, the tone, the kind of situation that is occurring throughout the poem, and you have to know the clear message of the poem, if there is one. In “Traveling Through the Dark” these five key details are presented to the readers. The poem’s persona is the narrator himself. The narrator is

dictating his story of his encounter with a dead doe on a road. The setting of the poem takes place on a narrow road called Wilson River road up on a mountain and it also takes place in the late night, as the narrator describes that it is dark. The tone in the poem is very calm at the beginning of the poem; however, once the narrator learns about the fawn, the tone switches into a more sympathetic tone. The situation in the poem displays a scene of a person driving and finding a dead deer on the road and he/she has to decide whether to roll the doe into the canyon or try to save the fawn that is still alive inside the dead doe. Pushing the deer into the canyon will help save lives of other human beings driving on the narrow road, but the cost is taking the life of a baby animal. This situation presents the clear message to the readers, which is how sometimes the right decision to make is the hardest and cruelest one. The persona, tone, setting, the situation, and message give readers great insight into the comprehension of the poem. In addition to those essential elements, Stafford uses imagery and comparisons to help readers use their senses to enable them to connect with the poem more.
One poetic device that plays a big part in the poem is imagery. Imagery allows the readers to be in the actual scene of the poem as well. There are many examples of this throughout the poem. One example is stanza two, “By the 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; she was large in the belly.” This stanza helps the readers portray a horrific scene of the narrator’s car with red, eerie taillights and seeing the cold, stiff, big-bellied deer lying on the road in the dark. Stafford also includes imagery in the sense of touch. Lines one and two in stanza three is one illustration of this, “My fingers touching her side brought me the reason -/ her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting.” The narrator is expressing his feeling of his fingers on the dead doe and the living fawn. Imagery is a very big aspect of this poem. Also, comparisons are displayed throughout the poem many times. One example of a metaphor is in line thirteen, “The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights”. The lowered parking lights are personified as the eyes of a human that is sad, as it is aware of the death that occurred. Another example of a metaphor is line 14, “Under the hood purred the steady engine.” Stafford is comparing the ‘purring steady engine’ to a beating heart of a living thing. Line fifteen, “I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red”, also personifies the exhaust by saying it is ‘warm’ and the exhaust like the breath of the car. Similarly, symbolism and word choice help bring out the true meaning of the poem.
Symbolism and word choice are poetic devices that show meanings of words or phrases that mean more than their literal definition.

Stafford uses these poetic devices in the poem plentiful times. One example of symbolism is the fawn of the dead doe. The fawn is the baby of the deer, but it also symbolizes nature and how it is getting dominated over technology. The car, which is a symbol of technology, is shown with some sort of supremacy with its ‘purring’ engine, lights ‘aimed ahead’, and exhaust ‘turning red’. Also, technology is the reason for the death of nature as the car is the reason for the doe’s death. Another example of symbolism in Stafford’s poem is Wilson River Road. A road’s connotation means a path of life and the narrator of the poem wants to choose the right path of life. However, making the wrong choice, ‘swerving’ off course, can “make more dead”. The final illustration of symbolism is the dark. The dark is a symbol of evil and it brings a feel as if something bad is going to happen. Stafford starts out the poem with the title, “Traveling Through the Dark”, which means how the narrator is on the path of darkness, which brings uncertainty in people’s lives. In addition to symbolism, word choice also helps readers to interpret words and phrases. One example of connotation and denotation is the phrase from line eighteen, “Pushed her over the edge”. The denotation of the phrase means the narrator pushes the dead carcass of the doe into the canyon. The connotation means that the decision of the narrator to roll the deer into the canyon pushed the narrator’s emotions over the edge. Another example of word choice is the word river in the last line of the poem. A river’s connotation also means a path of life as rivers hold water and water also represents life. The river might symbolize the new life of the deer and its fawn. Word choice and symbolism are two poetic devices that help to discover the meanings of words and phrases other than their literal

definitions.
All six poetic devices used in Stafford’s poem really help readers to see the poem in a different perspective. These poetic devices also help piece together one true meaning and message of the poem.