Traveling Through The Dark Analysis

Poetry is a very powerful mechanism through which writers can tell their readers something about themselves or the world around them. The language within “Traveling Through the Dark” by William Stafford and “Woodchucks” by Maxine Kumin display the speakers’ psychology and what sort of relationships they have with the animals and their deaths in their respective works. Despite being similar in a few aspects, these two works are very different. The most obvious similarity between the two works is that they both center around the speaker and how they feel and act towards the death of animals. Both speakers also had nothing to lose in killing the animals. When they were actively contributing to the animals’ demises, the speakers’ demeanors towards it seems somewhat casual when it came to the deaths. In “Traveling Through the Dark” the speaker simply “pushed her over the edge into the river” (Line 18). And Kumin begins “Woodchucks” with “Gassing the woodchucks just didn’t turn out right.” The speaker there just views the disposal of the woodchucks as a task. Both poems use strong word choice to
“Woodchucks” shows the speaker using violent, strong words to showcase the murderous emotions felt towards the woodchucks. She uses the word “beheading” and took over” to describe the woodchucks’ crimes against her garden. The speaker’s contribution to the deaths of the woodchucks was completely voluntary as Kumin wrote “...the murderer inside me rose up hard” (Line 23). This shows that she feels strongly about what she is doing and that she is correct in her actions. Meanwhile the speaker in “Traveling Through the Dark” is dealing with a much less violent situation and is aware he has a choice in the outcome. He is sympathetic to both sides that would potentially be affected: The faun that was still alive in the mother’s body, and other drivers who could potentially die if the body is left where it was