Traveling Through The Dark Analysis

Ever had a mental “fork in the road?” Of course you have. We all have those tough decisions to make at times. William Stafford’s “Traveling Through the Dark” is about one of those very instances. But there’s more to it than meets the eye. In fact, one could argue that the point of view character has this internal struggle due to a psychological theory called behaviorism. Behaviorism is the psychological theory that we are influenced by our environment through social means. Because of behaviorism theory, the main character develops a moral struggle caused by his surroundings. To delve deeper, here’s a line-by-line analysis of “Traveling Through the Dark.”

The analogy of life, along with the obstacles that one must overcome in order to advance and to succeed is portrayed through the narrator’s experience with a dead deer in “Traveling through the Dark” by William Stafford. An interpretation of the title “Traveling through the Dark” is one’s outlook of life. Ultimately, humans are incapable of being all-knowing; living day by day without the ability to predict tomorrow. The dead deer on the edge of the road symbolizes unexpectancies in life, the speaker 's ability to make a critical decision when no one is watching allows the speaker to progress in the journey of life.

First The Explorer uses the extended metaphor of a hallway to represent life to express the longing for peace, grief, and choices. In addition, the one traveling down the hallway isn’t the speaker but is an unidentified ‘He’, and this brings a universal perspective as ‘He’ becomes humanity as a whole. All the rhetoric Brooks uses drives the poem to show the universal experience of traveling through life making choices that define and change one’s

What a greedy monster. We rode for days at time, hardly stopping for anything but gasoline. With what little we were allowed to bring, I had decided on a few of my favorite books, which included “Tender Is the Night,”by F. Scott Fitzgerald and my prized book, “The Good Earth” by Pearl S. Buck. From the back of the truck, I loved to look up at the night sky.

As life persists, humans continue to make the same mistakes that we have been making for many years. The poem “Evening Hawk” by Robert Penn Warren is about the continuous errors of humanity, which is forgotten in the past, as death keeps approaching and society progresses. The poet uses imagery, diction, symbolism, and other figurative language devices throughout the poem to convey the dark mood and deeper meaning of history and death in the poem. The poem begins with a beautiful scene of the vast mountains and a hawk flying through it.

Paul Bogard structures his argument by using rhetoric to persuade the audience about the importance of natural darkness. Using personal narrative, real life events, and logic, Bogard argues why we should work to preserve the value and beauty of the dark. The passage begins with his experience at a cabin in Minnesota. By using pathos, Bogard taps into the emotions of the audience through well structured sentences and poetic words as he describes the beauty of the night sky.

Then taking a deep breath to let go of those fond memories to remember that a life of solitude is what you want now. As said at the end of the poem by Schulman “…then wheezed and stopped again. Shadow cut the road before I drove off in the dark woods.” The reader can depict by the figurative language that she implies leaving behind a time of memory to evade into the darkness. The darkness being a life of solitude starting a new chapter in

Eudora Welty describes “The Worn Path” as being not so much on the life or death of the grandchild but more so on the journey itself. While the poem “Traveling Through the Dark” is a journey of thought that is more so on the journey to reach a decision than the decision itself. Therefore the process of the journey is more important than the outcome, due to the lessons it has to teach the reader and the development of the character. Both are faced with obstacles to overcome, that affect or influence them along their path, helping to find their identities.

In “The Road Not Taken” a traveler goes to the woods to find himself and make a decision based on self-reliance. The setting of the poem relays this overall message. Providing the mood of the poem, the setting of nature brings a tense feeling to “The Road Not Taken”. With yellow woods in the midst of the forest, the setting “combines a sense of wonder at the beauty of the natural world with a sense of frustration as the individual tries to find a place for himself within nature’s complexity” (“The Road Not Taken”). The setting is further evidence signifying the tense and meditative mood of the poem as well as in making choices.

Throughout this poem, Robert Frost uses extended metaphors to convey that every human has a path that causes them to constantly make choices that will continue to shape their lives. In the first lines of the poem, Frost states, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood/ And sorry I could not travel both” (Lines 1-2). Immediately, the idea is established that the speaker has to make a decision.

Poetry is a universal form of art. People belonging to different cultures have their own forms of expressing poetry. Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken,” and Gary Soto’s “Saturday at the Canal,” demonstrate two of the many styles of poetry. Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” symbolizes an individual’s decisions. The factors leading up to that decision, as well as the consequences that follow, are always unknown, as elaborated in the poem.

I am going to write about two pieces of written work, describing their similarities and differences. The first one is "Old Ben". It is a farmland story showing "Old Ben", an unusually friendly snake, finding a new life with a young farmer. The young man was warm and very much fond of the snake despite the snake's appearance. He lived on the farm with the fellow, but Old Ben (the snake) disappeared, unknown at the end of the story. The second story is "A Glow in the Dark". It was quite an unnerving narrative; however, it had an amusing end. The story was set in harsh, cold lands, and the narrator was dog-sledding when he came across a particular beam of light. This light reminded him of ghosts. Yet, he found himself facing a scientific issue regarding the light. It was from a glowing stump, which is related to phosphorus. Now, I would like to end this short summary of my chosen stories and continue to point out the likenesses between them and what sets them apart.

It is hard to define identity in the sense of human characteristics and qualities of one’s self or even a group of people. However, every day people manage to define their identity through various outlets of life. In the documentary, Through a Lens Darkly, the director, Thomas Allen Harris, asks artists who are African Americans to define themselves and their culture through photography. He uses his own identity in demonstrating the effect of photography on his own life as an African American. Through the rest of the documentary, Harris explores the identities of African Americans through photography publicly and privately in past and present.

In the poem, “The Road Not Taken,” Robert Frost uses beautifully crafted metaphors, imagery, and tone to convey a theme that all people are presented with choices in life, some of which are life-altering, so one should heavily way the options in order to make the best choices possible. Frost uses metaphors to develop the theme that life 's journey sometimes presents difficult choices, and the future is many times determined by these choices. Throughout the poem, Frost uses these metaphors to illustrate life 's path and the fork in the road to represent an opportunity to make a choice. One of the most salient metaphors in the poem is the fork in the road. Frost describes the split as, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both (“The Road Not Taken,” lines 1-2).

The poem, “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost states that in life we come upon many decisions, and there are points where we have to let fate take the lead. “The Road Not Taken” uses two paths as a symbol of a life decision. To understand this poem you have to have understanding of life’s meaning. The author helps us better understand the message by his use of tone and literary devices such as metaphors and symbolism. In this poem we come to realize that life is a combination of decisions and fate.