A Comparison Between “Traveling through the dark” and “A Noiseless, Patient Spider”
William Stafford’s "Traveling through the dark" is beautifully written poem that expresses one of life’s most challenging aspects. It is the story of a man’s solitary struggle to deal with a tragic event that he encounters.
Driving down a narrow mountain road, “Traveling through the dark,” the narrator of the poem encounters a deer. This line might fool the reader into believing the poem has a happy theme however, the first word of the second line reverses this belief. The deer is actually “dead on the edge of the Wilson River Road” (2, 911). The traveler decides to send the deer over the edge of the canyon,
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The driver who killed the deer is an example of this theme. He was also traveling through the dark, as the deer was a “recent killing.” The fact that he left it in the middle of the road, with no further thought for it or anyone else behind him, implies his immoral or dark nature.
The main theme of the poem however, is the sadness and misfortune that accompany us on our journey through life. The Wilson River Road, in which the events of the poem take place, is symbolic of the road of life that we all travel upon. The darkness and the setting of the poem point to the seclusion and indecision that we experience when dealing with life’s tragedies. Many people feel as confused as the narrator does when he was “stumbling back of the car” (5, 911) in his attempt to do the right thing. In his moment of decision, though, the only company the narrator had was the silent and unheeding world around him.
Unfortunately, many situations we must face in life are like this. People are not always around to help us through hard times, and most tragedies, such as death, are obstacles that we must overcome individually. As described in the poem though, death is an inevitability that we cannot change, and therefore should not deter us from our path. We must learn to deal with tragedies such as death, as they are unavoidable. These events do have an everlasting effect on us, but they should
The experience of darkness is both individual and universal. Within Emily Dickinson’s “We grow accustomed to the Dark” and Robert Frost’s “Acquainted with the Night,” the speakers engage in an understanding of darkness and night as much greater than themselves. Every individual has an experience of the isolation of the night, as chronicled in Frost’s poem, yet it is a global experience that everyone must face, on which Dickinson’s poem elaborates. Through the use of rhythm, point of view, imagery, and mood, each poet makes clear the fact that there is no single darkness that is too difficult to overcome.
Cormac McCarthy’s 2006 novel The Road is a story about how McCarthy believes the world will be after a disaster that kills millions of people. The book follows the lives of a man, known as Papa, and his son, known as the Boy. It is about their journey to find the other good guys, and how they survive in a world filled with starvation, pain, and death. In The Road, many people die. The two most important deaths are of the Boy’s Mother and Father. The two very different ways they die shows how death is accepted by various people and what they are feeling when they die. McCarthy uses death as a method of portraying how people felt about dying, and how it impacts the way that they are feeling when they die, and how it motivates them to live.
The story starts off with an image of light to represent hope, which is quickly contrasted with gloom of darkness that seems to hang over the characters and threaten the narrator and his family throughout the story. Hope overwhelms the narrator, just as his lack of acceptance to the painful realities of his life does as well. The story starts off introducing the relationship of the brothers being that of an estranged one, not having contact over a year. The narrator reads a newspaper article about his brother being arrested in a recent drug raid and is finally hit with reality.
Cormack McCarthy’s novel, The Road, is set in a post apocalyptic world, where humanity is struggling to survive. Through his simplistic writing style and powerful symbolism, McCarthy tells a story about the human condition as well as what it truly means to be human. Though it is set in a wasteland this novel still manages to project hope through the love of a boy and his father. The following passages are quotes that spoke to me stylistically or symbolically while I was reading.
In William Stafford 's poem “Traveling through the Dark” he establishes how a gloomy sight can hide the truth that no one would want to know. While driving down Wilson River road a person saw a dead deer on the edge. He pull over to take the deer of the road more a notices that it is a doe and it’s pregant. He feels the stomach and the baby is alive but not for long. He hesitates when he looks at his car and hears it and the wilderness. He eventually pushes the deer over the edge of the river. In the exposition, the poem tells that while driving down the road he saw a deer and most people would either severe it to past it or
In William Stafford's "Traveling Through the Dark", there are conflicting themes between birth and death, man and
It is inevitable that we will all die it is a fact that everyone must come to terms with. There comes a time in everyone’s life that they must face death; a friend’s tragic accident, a family member’s passing or their own battles with diseases. When faced with the idea of death people will act in different ways some may find it therapeutic to apologize for the negative they have done, some may want to spend time with loved ones to ease the future pain, and others may decide that their life was not what they believed. The story Death Constant Beyond Love tells us about a man named Senator Sanchez who is living a happy life with his wife and five kids. That is until he is told by doctors that he only has a short time to live. Death is
The theme death has always played a crucial role in literature. Death surrounds us and our everyday life, something that we must adapt and accept. Whether its on television or newpaper, you'll probobly hear about the death of an individual or even a group. Most people have their own ideas and attitude towards it, but many consider this to be a tragic event due to many reasons. For those who suffered greatly from despair, living their life miserably and hopelessly, it could actually be a relief to them. Death effects not only you, but also those around you, while some people may stay unaffected depending on how they perceive it.
The deceased deer is what forces the man to stop along the road, and death in general is what causes humans to stop along their path and take time to make decisions.
Death is part of the human life cycle, approximately 151,600 people die each day. Everyone wonders how they will die, if they suffer, if it’s tragic or if it’s just simply peaceful. In each of the three poems the main focus is death. Each poem shows a different feeling about death. “Thanatopsis” by William Bryant, “Don’t Fear the Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult and “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas, all have different meanings of death.
In Darkness Visible, William Styron writes of his deeply personal struggle through depression. He recounts his own thoughts and feelings that he experienced and describes the journey it took to emerge on the other side as he recovered. The book begins on a chilly evening in Paris in late October of 1985 as William Styron becomes aware of the seriousness of his
Life in its ever-evolving glory seems at times to be nothing more than a serious of random events that lead us from one place to another. It takes many years of grace and wisdom to see that life is much more than that. Life is far bigger than any one person or group of people. Life is a lesson and sometimes lessons need to repeat. Life during the time of Walt Whitman was oddly and sadly similar
Regardless of race, caste, religion, or age, every human has wondered about the one fact of life that unifies us all: What is death? Both poems, “Death of a Young Son by Drowning” by Margaret Atwood and “Because I could Not Stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson share a common subject of death. Using figurative language, both poems illustrate distinct takes on a similar topic.
people go through in life. The poem addresses a scenario where people result to death as a way
The poet in lines 5-6 cannot take his fatigued mind off the ‘deer’ as she continues to flee. “my wearied mind Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore,”. These lines signify his ‘obsession’ of possessing his prey. The use of the poetic term ‘consonance’, repetitions of non-vowel sounds, in line 6, “Draw from the deer” expresses the reoccurring longing desire and passion for the deer (woman). Another instance in which consonances are used, “as she fleeth afore, Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore”. In this line there is an unremitting repetition of the letter “F” which gives a great indication that the hunter is out of breath and exhausted. When she flees, it quotes, “fainting I follow”. He can only barely catch up to the wind that follows behind her, so he realises here that the chase is futile. He apprehends the fact that the deer is not welcoming his affection, which refers back to the theme of “unrequited love”. Wyatt in addition introduces a second ‘metaphor’, “wind” in which he uses to describe the woman. The “wind” symbolises agility, freedom and is impossible to capture. The first octave makes out that this was all a wasted hunt, and that the poet is officially unsuccessful.