1. A. Explain the decision—and the moral dilemma—faced by the speaker of “Travelling Through the Dark.” B. Do you think he made the right decision? Be sure to give your reasons. 2. Reread the fourth stanza (or verse) of the poem. What contrast is the poet making here?

A. The speaker of the poem finds a doe that was recently killed, but that was pregnant and its fawn is still alive inside its belly. At that moment the speaker finds himself in a moral dilemma, where he does not know whether to remove the fawn from his mother's belly and give him a chance to survive, or to let himself die and go on his way.

B. I don't think the speaker made the right decision.

C. The poet is making a contrast about the setting of the poem, in the previous stanzas the setting is responsible for showing what is happening and what the speaker is visualizing. In the fourth stanza, however, the poet uses a different narration, narrating characteristics of the cars and the environment to give the notion that the speaker was reflecting on what he should do.

Explanation:

As mentioned above, the speaker finds, on the road, the body of a doe that was recently killed. Upon analyzing it he realizes that the doe was pregnant and that her fawn is still alive in his belly. The speaker is thoughtful if he removes the fawn from his mother's dead body and gives him a chance to survive or let himself die and go on his way. At the end of the day and after reflecting (evidenced in the fourth verse) about the case, the speaker decides to push the doe into the river, along with the fawn.

Although we can conclude that the speaker made this decision because it would be very difficult for the fawn to survive without a hand, that was not the correct option to make. The speaker should have called the environmental authorities so that they could decide the most appropriate destination for the fawn, since there is a small chance that she will survive.