The poem by William Stafford, “Traveling With the Dark” presents readers by having an uncomfortable and rather harsh demonstration of the intersection from the natural world which of individual. Technology, within this situation cars anf the husband-made road, are noticed as something invasive and dangerous within this poem. To be able to convey this is from the poem &#8220Traveling With the Dark&#8221 by William Stafford utilizes a conversational style to speak the theme within the poem from the role of technology in modern existence and, more to the point, the theme of individual versus nature becomes apparent.

You will find multiple methods for perceiving the poem and also the tensions between man and technology it presents. One point of view, as expressed by Judith Kitchen in her own book &#8220Writing the planet: Understanding William Stafford&#8220, shows that the poem by Stafford, “Traveling With the Dark” demonstrates “the encroachment of mechanized society around the wilderness” (Kitchen). For Kitchen, this poem stealthily easy and straightforward title from the poem by William Stafford, &#8220Travelling With the Dark&#8221 and it is conversational style belie a remarkably deep feeling of discomfort and guilt the narrator suffers through. By analyzing how a poem uses language to convey these feelings, particularly by searching in the way certain objects undertake a existence (the vehicle, for example, which itself “aims” and swerves” as if it’s the embodiment of individual and technology) Kitchen expresses the way the poem by Stafford “Traveling With the Dark” hides an intricate message about man and nature behind stealthily simple phrasing, syntax, and tone. She highlights ways that some quite simple word choices within the poem by William Stafford, &#8220Traveling With the Dark&#8221 undertake monumental importance, stating, for instance, that whenever the poet refers back to the “group” witnessing the wedding, “The group seems is the man, the deer, the unborn fawn, by extension, all nature” (Kitchen).

In a nutshell, Judith Kitchen assists the sporadic readers of the poem to determine beyond the conversational style and in to the more metaphorical and implicit meanings of the items appear like blunt word and image choices for Stafford.

Kitchen isn’t alone in her own thought of this poem like a statement concerning the collision of individual and technology. In the article, “Traveling With the Dark: The Backwoods Surrealism from the Far West” by William Youthful, the pictures and sounds of machines and nature are in the apex of their meaning. Because he highlights, “In Stanza Four, we’ve the juxtaposition of machine and backwoods, complicated through the animal ‘purr’ from the motor and also the human listening from the wilderness” (Youthful 193). While his article examines the function of surrealism within this poem, this lending of human characteristics to nature and machines (and also the reverse too) belongs to the surreal excellence of the poem. Youthful has an interest in the manner the sounds of machines are just like individuals anyway and just how a few of the same images you find anyway are members of both humanity and technology concurrently. In a nutshell, Youthful presents a really broad scope in the discussion of the poem and that he compares the vast nature from the message he suggests Stafford is attempting to share.

As both articles suggest, there’s a obvious message within the poem concerning the intersection of individual, nature, and technology. The narrator’s vehicle itself is sort of a character within the poem so that as Youthful suggests, it “purrs” and appears to create its very own decisions to swerve. It’s careless and driven by something mindless—something not in contact with the greater lightly representation of nature. It’s important to note the deer is really a doe that’s pregnant and it is thus nature at its weakest and many vulnerable. The opposition from a motor along with a man-made road and also the natural world is apparent anf the husband must push the deer in to the river, that is into the circulation from the natural world. There’s a tension here and also the poem’s aim is to help make the readers check this out like a negative encounter. The speaker, as Kitchen suggests, is nearly afraid to utter strong words and that he skirts around things he may otherwise say inside a more blunt fashion, as would match the conversational tone from the poem. For example, rather of claiming the deer was pregnant, he states, “I pulled her off, she was large within the belly.” A feeling is it could be too difficult—to human—to suggest she was pregnant. Rather, the narrator puts it in ways we are able to digest. He cannot emerge and discuss the outcome of vehicle (technology) around the natural world, but skirts around it and discusses the deer as something entirely various and alien in the man-made elements surrounding her.

The uncomfortable way the narrator describes the big event, together with interesting selections of words and phrasing, helps make the readers conscious that this poem is supposed to reflect the concept that it was an adverse experience which man and technology are encroaching around the backwoods and causing harm. The very fact that it hadn’t been only a deer however a pregnant female deer is essential since it shows nature at its most vulnerable. Additionally, it shows the way in which technology and man feel obligated to “do something” anyway, even if it’s something (like removing a defunct deer in the road) and is definitely the way it is really an uncomfortable task because it highlights the tensions between man and nature.

Youthful, William. &#8220Traveling with the Dark: The Backwoods Surrealism from the Far West.&#8221 Midwest Quarterly 39.2 (1998), 187-201

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