The poem I choose to analyse in my essay is Travelling through the Dark by William Stafford. The poem presents a man under an uncomfortable natural world environment. Apparently, man versus nature is the theme of this poem, while it also mentions the modern life technology, and why it is affecting the nature world. But majorly it focuses on the theme of man and nature, which is an attractive in the views of the humanity and the nature.
The poem uses a conversational style to express the theme. It is a short poem which consists eighteen lines only, separated into four quatrains with one closing couplet. While the title literally and directly tells us the speaker of this poem is travelling through the dark, we are able to understand the situation …show more content…
The event happens during a dark night when the lights of car are the only sources of light. The imagery details in this poem are very strong, for instance the descriptions of the car in the poem are very good examples of image “By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car” (5), “The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights” (13) and “Under the hood purred the steady engine” (14). These details suggest the connection between the car and the recent killings mentioned in the poem. The car first appears to be not very significant, but it suggests the only source of light in the dark is the red tail-light of the car. The strong imagery from the description of the dead deer hence sets the tone of this poem. Then the speaker mentions the parking lights, this tells us the parking lights are always aimed forward or ahead, which is toward the road of future life. Soon, the speaker uses the personification to express the living concept of the car. A purring engine, this is how the speaker describes in the poem, lead us to consider that the car actually have a heart which is beating and makes the car like a living thing. If we link these symbolisms with the killing of the poor deer, we can easily identify the sympathetic yet ironical tone of the …show more content…
These words are like the personification Stafford used, they add emotional description to the car. Thus the car becomes something more than an ordinary car, it becomes a living creature which is similar to the speaker and the fawn. The diction of this poem is again focused on the major conflict between technology and nature. In addition, the varying syntax in the poem also implies the emotional part of the speaker. The use of many pauses in the poem is a great syntax, especially this line, has very obvious pauses “And stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing” (6). As readers, we can feel the speaker cares very much to the dead doe, and we can see the death of the doe is a significant element in this poem while it is emphasized with the
The poem uses a conversational style to express the theme. It is a short poem which consists eighteen lines only, separated into four quatrains with one closing couplet. While the title literally and directly tells us the speaker of this poem is travelling through the dark, we are able to understand the situation …show more content…
The event happens during a dark night when the lights of car are the only sources of light. The imagery details in this poem are very strong, for instance the descriptions of the car in the poem are very good examples of image “By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car” (5), “The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights” (13) and “Under the hood purred the steady engine” (14). These details suggest the connection between the car and the recent killings mentioned in the poem. The car first appears to be not very significant, but it suggests the only source of light in the dark is the red tail-light of the car. The strong imagery from the description of the dead deer hence sets the tone of this poem. Then the speaker mentions the parking lights, this tells us the parking lights are always aimed forward or ahead, which is toward the road of future life. Soon, the speaker uses the personification to express the living concept of the car. A purring engine, this is how the speaker describes in the poem, lead us to consider that the car actually have a heart which is beating and makes the car like a living thing. If we link these symbolisms with the killing of the poor deer, we can easily identify the sympathetic yet ironical tone of the …show more content…
These words are like the personification Stafford used, they add emotional description to the car. Thus the car becomes something more than an ordinary car, it becomes a living creature which is similar to the speaker and the fawn. The diction of this poem is again focused on the major conflict between technology and nature. In addition, the varying syntax in the poem also implies the emotional part of the speaker. The use of many pauses in the poem is a great syntax, especially this line, has very obvious pauses “And stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing” (6). As readers, we can feel the speaker cares very much to the dead doe, and we can see the death of the doe is a significant element in this poem while it is emphasized with the