Deer Hit

“Deer Hit” questions the accidental nature of accidents. A sufficient number of bad decisions make the poem’s driver, speaker, “you” figure culpable for the chaos and damage to himself and others. His father waits up for him, making similar bad choices and becoming angry. Both characters could be classified as careless, the violence random, the damage secondary and unintended.

But the driver gathers up the mortally-wounded deer “like a bride” (Line 21), describing the deer in terms that connect it intimately to him in a relationship of love and dependence and using the language of a transitory life stage—the positive connotation of “bride” clashing eerily with reality of the deer’s transitory state. Instead of fleeing his carnage like a careless person, he enfolds it and brings it home with him like a trophy. The driver struggles internally in Lines 43 through 46, attempting to frame his reasoning. He questions himself, providing two theories, not as explanations but as excuses: “what can you tell him” (Line 43). The driver knows why he brought the deer home rather than abandoning it in the road. His destruction demands commemoration. “Some things stay with you,” the driver offers in Line 50, obliquely providing the true reason he brings home souvenirs of his violence.