Symbol Analysis
The road is, well, the road. But it also functions metaphorically in the poem. Most of us are familiar with the road as a metaphor for life's journey and also the idea of choosing the right path or road to follow. We can see these ideas at work in Stafford's poem, too. Check it out…
- Line 2: The poem's first mention of the road establishes the literal image of the road—a specific, rural, mountain road. Stafford's primary concern in this poem isn't to make big, sweeping philosophical statements. First and foremost, Stafford wants to tell us what is happening in a very real, very literal sense.
- Line 4: We are still talking about the literal mountain road. It really is narrow. But since we are all so familiar with the metaphorical uses of the road, those ideas start to surface as well. With those ideas of life's journey and the right path in mind, the fact that this road is narrow takes on some added significance.
If life is a road to travel, when you get off the road you are—anyone? anyone?—dead. So the fact that this road is narrow literally and metaphorically makes life seem pretty precarious.
There is also the idea that the speaker is trying to choose the right path. Making the wrong choice, swerving off course, of the road of life, can "make more dead." - Line 12: Choosing the right path is difficult. The choices are hard. The speaker is still on the road, but is over near the edge considering the dead doe and her still living, unborn fawn. The speaker knows the right path, he knows what he has to do to keep the road of life clear for the living, but he hesitates because what he has to do is so grim. Sometimes, on the road of life, the right choice is the hardest, cruelest option.