Woodchucks Poem Essay - 652 Words

â€Å"Eliminating the Pest† In the poem â€Å"Woodchucks† by Maxine Kumin, the speaker is in her garden and is annoyed with some woodchucks that are eating and destroying the produce in the garden. The speaker in turn tries to remove the woodchucks by using humane gas to kill them and when that is unsuccessful, she resorts to more violent means. This poem uses the annoying woodchucks to signify the Jewish people during the Holocaust by the Nazi Party. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;In the first stanza of the poem, the speaker clearly identifies that some woodchucks are annoying her. To solve this problem, the speaker uses gas as a way to eliminate the pests quickly and painlessly much like the Nazis tried to eradicate the Jews from their presence.†¦show more content†¦The poor innocent woodchuck falls to its death in the beautiful roses below. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;The second and third stanzas bring out the true violence in the speaker. She claims that she is a peaceful person but has been driven to violence. Thus natural selection is responsible for the woodchuck’s death, not her. This is just like the Nazis killing the Jewish people during the Holocaust. The Nazis saw the Jews as an inferior race that irritated them. The Nazis then took natural selection into their own hands and exterminating all the Jews. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;In the fourth stanza, the speaker’s killing instinct has taken over her body. She shows no pity towards the woodchucks as she takes the mother woodchuck and shoots her, watching it fall to its helpless death. She then takes another baby woodchuck, looking in its eyes, and kills it. She continues to kill the rest like a trained assassin, or psycho killer driven by pure frustration. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;The speaker’s actions are like that of the Nazis towards the Jews. The Jews began to revolt against the gas chambers, infuriating the Nazis. In return, the Nazis lower themselves to lower, more cold-hearted techniques used to extinguish the Jews, who they see as a nuisance. They began to break apart families, torture prisoners and kill some Jews face to face. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;In the fifth and final stanza the speaker talks about trying to kill the old clever woodchuckShow MoreRelatedCompare/Contrast Traveling Through the Dark and Woodchucks1161 Words   |  5 PagesCompare and Contrast Essay In the poems â€Å"Traveling Through the Dark† and â€Å"Woodchucks† man must make a decision about nature in the most inconvenient ways. In â€Å"Traveling Through the Dark† the narrator is faced with, literally, a life or death situation, whereas in â€Å"Woodchucks† the narrator is faced under the Darwinian belief about killing. Both poems reveal the interpersonal relationship between man and animal as well as the moral dilemma that man faces with nature. 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