(You accidentally drop your cheeseburger wrapper on the floor. William Stafford based his poem on an actual incident which he was involved in on the road in Oregon state one time. But when he dragged it he found that it was pregnant. Surely the deer should be moved, rolled off the road and down into the river. The poem, “Travelling through the Dark”, depicts the internal conflict between the mind, a sense of responsibility, and heart, the compassion, of the narrator. The driver thinks hard for everyone, and the reader has to think hard too. dead on the edge of the Wilson River road. He even wonders if the fawn can be saved, but knows all along that the fawn cannot be born when the mother is dead. Bill's BooksThis link gives you a look at cover art and glimpses inside many of Stafford's books. The last two lines of the poem complete both types of action: mental and physical. Traveling through the dark I found a deer dead on the edge of the Wilson River road. Andrew has a keen interest in all aspects of poetry and writes extensively on the subject. Two Long-Term Problems : Too Many People, Too Few Trees. Source: The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems (Graywolf Press, 1998) But in the fourth stanza he does not say anything about the deer. Through this poem his actions and … (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); On a dark night, the narrator was driving his car on Wilson River road. The reader shows love to the fawn but not to the doe. 6. The darkness also suggests the narrator’s confusion about what to do with the deer. The poem, “Travelling through the Dark”, depicts the internal conflict between the mind, a sense of responsibility, and heart, the compassion, of the narrator. The deer turns out to be pregnant and this fact plays on the mind of the helper, who wants to keep the road safe yet cannot stop thinking about the fawn, still warm inside the mother. Both activities end. What we do in those moments can tell us a great deal about ourselves. Half-rhymes occur (or near or slant) which help to glue the poem together but still leave room for hesitancy and a lack of harmony . The car becomes a being, with red lights and exhaust, like a demonic breath, the driver turning red as he decides what to do. Later, he spent many years in Oregon where he taught at Lewis and Clark College, eventually being named Poet Laureate of Oregon in 1975. 100 Essential Modern Poems, Ivan Dee, Joseph Parisi, 2005. The themes are secondary, in a sense, to the stories themselves. How do you explain its significance in the poem ? The title Travelling through dark has double meaning etymologically the speaker is travelling during the dark time. “That road is narrow” indicates that the speaker is in the jungle by the side of the river, not in the highway. Traveling Through the Dark by William Stafford: Summary and Analysis In this poem Traveling Through the Dark the poet William Stafford describes how he was moved by the death of a pregnant doe when he was driving a car along the mountain road at night. “Traveling through the dark” also symbolizes the spiritual void of humankind in its insensitivity toward nature. Title: The title of the poem ‘Traveling through the Dark’ simply make the readers understand that the poet was travelling in the night. If you said "yes," or even "um, I don't know, I guess," then William Stafford's "Traveling through the Dark" might just be the poem for you. 1. He knows that his delay is only a waste of time, so he pushes the doe into the river and marches towards his destination. The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights; I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red; around our group I could hear the wilderness listen. It is usually best to roll them into the canyon: that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead. Stanza 4 is the break in the narrative. Its exhaust fume was warm and red, and the poet was standing there. His poems are published online and in print. He describes the car and her activities. So, the speaker of this poem is traveling in the dark with some special purpose. The driver’s inaction suggests moral darkness. and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing; I dragged her off; she was large in the belly. In death the traveler discovers life, but not normal life that emerges from the womb into the world, for the fawn is “never to be born.” This unhappy realization causes the traveler to hesitate. The emphasis is on the possibility within the word still. At the same time, through the symbolic “Dark” of the title the poet is able to portray that the growing affinity of human with machine is tempting them to collide with the nature, a collision which will be threatening for all the living species on the planet, not only a doe.
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