Poetry for Students

286 Poetry for Students

After he rises, he shouts and is ready to chase the

raccoons away with a stick. He still shouts at them

when they have escaped up a tree. This shows that

the narrator is in the typical waking state of con-

sciousness, in which consciousness is centered on

the individual sense of “I,” and everything else is

seen as separate from it. The poet and the raccoon

are different; they occupy different worlds, the hu-

man and the nonhuman; they are in opposition to

each other. The gain of one—the raccoons’ raid of

the kitchen—is against the interests of the other—

the human being who wants to sleep and to keep

his home secure from intrusion.

But, this changes in the more reflective section

of the poem that begins in stanza 3. Up to this point,

the poet has been locked into an adversarial, ego-

bound mode of consciousness. He is concerned only

with the ego’s need to control and shape the outer

world to ensure its own comfort. Now, the stillness

of the night begins to work on him. It is as if the

raccoons, and his conflict with them, disappear from

his awareness. They are not mentioned again. His

consciousness shifts from a sense of separation from

the world to a sense of oneness. Not only is he alive

to all the sights and sounds of the night, no longer

obsessed with the irritable workings of his own in-

dividual mind, he also seems able, so to speak, to

dissolve into the night. He is in touch, a part of the

natural world, no longer himself at all (in the lim-

ited, individual sense of the word), but connected

to and a part of something much larger. The poet

has become transparent, translucent, “open” to the

natural world. All that held him fixed, rigid and

apart from other things has vanished.

The last part of the poem is a journey back

from this tranquil oneness with all things into a

more practical awareness of the poet’s responsibil-

ities in the world. The poet does not mean merely

that he must not waste his time idling outside in

the beauty of the night because he needs his sleep.

Although there is nothing wrong with this literal

level of interpretation, the poet may have some-

thing deeper in mind. He seems to be suggesting

that, although the experience he records of oneness

with the natural world is a positive experience, life

cannot be lived permanently in this state. The mind

must return from oneness to duality, the day-to-day

world. Each state has its own validity; neither is re-

pudiated, and there must be a balance between the

two in a person’s life.

During the course of the poem, the poet has

therefore journeyed from sleep to an agitated wak-

ing state of consciousness, to a serene contempla-

tive mode of experience, and then back to sleep,

enriched by the insights he has gained.

Style

Alliteration and Assonance

The poet uses a variety of poetic devices to

create the effect he wants. In the first line, when

the poet is fast asleep in bed, the assonance and al-

literation, as well as the use of words of one sylla-

ble, create an effect that suggests a state of

consciousness different from the normal waking

state. The assonance is in the repetition of the “e”

sounds in “sheath” and “sleep.” These two words

also show the use of alliteration, the repetition of

initial consonants. The alliteration also occurs in

the second part of the line, in “black” and “bed.”

True Night

Topics for

Further

Study

• Research Zen Buddhism and describe its origins
  and main tenets. How would you describe the
  Zen Buddhist method and purpose of meditat-
  ing? What is a koan?


• Research shamanism in the Native American
  tradition. What is a shaman? What functions
  does a shaman perform? What is the shaman’s
  place in traditional Native American culture, or
  in other cultures?


• Rewrite the first part of “True Night” from the
  point of view of the raccoons. Try to convey how
  they would experience the situation. What might
  they see, hear, touch, smell, taste, and sense?


• As humans build communities on ever-expanding
  areas of land, the natural habitats of wildlife are
  being displaced or altered. What is the impact
  of the presence of wildlife on property and
  residents? In what areas of the United States is
  the problem most acute? What can be done to
  alleviate the problem? Can humans and wildlife
  co-exist?

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