Both poems start with the same indifferent tone. The speaker of “Woodchucks” complains that his first attempt to kill the woodchucks did not work so he has to try again. The speaker of “Traveling though the Dark” discusses how when there is a dead dear on the road, the first person to come upon it must clear the path. However, The tonal shift in each poem is very different. In “Woodchucks” the speakers tone becomes more dreadful as he begins to enjoy killing off the woodchucks one by one until finally he claims, “If only they’d all consented to die unseen gassed underground the quit Nazi way”. As the last line of the poem, the speaker makes the reader want to go back and read it again because now the reader has a totally different view of how sick the speaker is. In “Travelling through the Dark” the tonal shift comes from his connecting to nature as soon as he touches the deer to find that its pregnant. However, once again, the poem ends on a more somber note as he pushes the dear into the river. While it is not as drastic as “Woodchucks” ending, it is a very sad realization the speaker cannot help the deer and must help any person who ends up driving the same road.
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