7.9

Traveling through the Dark

William Stafford

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Kim Stafford and the William Stafford Archives/Lewis & Clark College

American poet William Stafford (1914–1993) grew up in Kansas during the Depression, working odd jobs to help his family and pay his way through college at the University of Kansas. A conscientious objector who refused to serve in the military during World War II, Stafford wrote extensively in journals throughout his life but did not publish his first collection of poems until he was almost fifty. This poem, about an encounter with a deer on the edge of the road, is typical of Stafford’s narrative approach to poetry.

Traveling through the dark I found a deer

dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.

It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:

that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.

5 By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car

and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;

she had stiffened already, almost cold.

I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.

My fingers touching her side brought me the reason —

10 her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,

alive, still, never to be born.

Beside that mountain road I hesitated.

The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;

under the hood purred the steady engine.

15 I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;

around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.

I thought hard for us all — my only swerving —,

then pushed her over the edge into the river.

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Understanding and Interpreting

  1. Trace the speaker’s changing position on the issue of pushing the deer off the side of the road, from the first look at the deer, to the discovery of the fawn, to the final choice. Was it such a difficult choice after all, since the speaker ended up doing what he or she thought about doing at first?

  2. In the last stanza, the speaker says, “I thought hard for us all” (l. 17). Who does the speaker mean by “us”? What conclusion does he or she arrive at, and why? Be sure to support your response with examples from the text.

  3. Where does the poem shift in terms of theme, tone, or subject matter? What is the effect created by this shift?

  4. There is a clear contrast drawn in this poem between the world of man and the world of nature. Identify how Stafford draws this contrast and for what purpose.

  5. The title of the poem can be taken literally: the speaker is traveling in the dark. What are metaphorical interpretations of the title?

Analyzing Language, Style, and Structure

  1. Stafford uses a form of the word “swerve” in both the first and last stanzas. Explain the similarities and contrasts in the usage in the two parts of the poem. Is Stafford referring to the same type of swerving?

  2. Reread the descriptions of the fawn “waiting, / alive, still, never to be born” (ll. 10–11). Explain how the word choice here emphasizes the difficulty that the speaker faces.

  3. Explain the effects of Stafford’s changing use of pronouns throughout the poem: I, she, our, and us.

  4. Although the poem is called “Traveling through the Dark,” there are several descriptions of the light. Identify the various sources of light in the poem and explain how they contribute to the conflict the speaker is facing.

  5. What is the effect of the personification in the line “I could hear the wilderness listen” (l. 16)?

  6. Because of its use of commonplace words, Stafford’s poetry is sometimes mistakenly considered to be simplistic. Examine Stafford’s use of the following simple words, and explain how the figurative meaning of each supports the poem’s theme: narrow, cold, warm, dead, alive, still, swerving, road, river.

Connecting, Arguing, and Extending

  1. At the end of the poem, the speaker decides to push the deer off the road. Is this the right thing to do in this situation? What alternatives could the speaker have considered?

  2. How do we know what the right thing to do is? Philosophers John Stuart Mill and Immanuel Kant struggled with that question and came up with very different answers. Mill promoted the idea of utilitarianism, which means that we must make the choice that is likely to lead to the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people, while Kant proposed the idea of the categorical imperative, which determines the morality of an act by asking whether it would still be right if everyone did this act, all of the time, in all situations. Conduct research on these two approaches and explain which philosopher would likely agree with the speaker’s actions in this poem and why.

  3. Even though the speaker did not cause the situation, he or she feels a responsibility to act. Write a narrative about a time in your own life when you felt that you had a responsibility to do something. What were the circumstances that led up to the situation, what did you do, and why?

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