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154 Unit 2 ■ Analyzing Comparisons and Representations

SUGGESTED RESPONSES
TO THE QUESTIONS
1. The primary speaker is an older version of
the seventeen-year-old “you” character he
describes. The speaker is able to reflect on The image shows a young boy illustrating
the experience and acknowledge its lingering the size of a fish he caught on a recent
impact on his life after time has passed. fishing trip. In retellings and reflections,
2. The speaker closes the poem in lines 50–53 by stories may become exaggerated or even Steven Gottlieb/Corbis Historical/Getty Images
larger than life.
Copyright (c) 2023 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. Uncorrected proofs were used with this sample chapter.
revealing that the memories of this experience
(like the physical deformity of his nose that Consider events in life that have had a
remains from his injury) still haunt him as he significant impact. How do stories allow us
recalls decisions and consequences that he to share thoughts and feelings?
regrets (“the trail of ruin you leave”). This is
Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. Strictly for use with its products. Not for redistribution.
likely either the first (or one of the first) of
these experiences that the speaker regrets the
unintentional consequences of his actions. CHARACTER
3. The speaker focuses on sensory details that 1. Who is the primary speaker of “Deer Hit”? How does this particular perspective
emphasize the physicality of the violence, contribute to the meaning of the poem?
horror, and confusion in such a visceral 2. What details are revealed about the speaker’s knowledge of the past? How do
experience. As a result, the tone of the text is they affect your interpretation of the poem?
out of control, otherworldly, nightmarish.
4. Responses may vary. One of the most obvious 3. How does the speaker describe the surroundings and the events of the poem?
How does this description contribute to the tone of the text?
contrasts is the speaker’s desire to save the
deer, only to end up killing it and dumping its STRUCTURE
body anyway. The contrast reveals a bitter
truth that the speaker learns about life: there 4. Choose one example of a contrast in the poem, and then explain how that
are some things people cannot fix despite the contrast contributes to the poem’s dramatic situation.
best of intentions. 5. Explain how the poem ends. What is the resolution of its conflict or tension?
5. The speaker and his father kill the deer by
hitting it with the concrete block, and they take FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE: Word Choice, Imagery, and Symbols
the body out to the woods and leave it. The 6. Identify and explain the use of repetition throughout the poem. What effect does
speaker signals guilt and regret as he reflects this repetition have in “Deer Hit”?
on the significance this experience has had on
the whole of his life. 7. The poem is filled with antecedents (nouns) with ambiguous referents. How
6. The speaker repeats the use of second-person does the poet’s use of pronouns affect your interpretation of the poem?
pronouns as a way to distance himself from FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE: Comparisons
the memory (as if watching a movie) and to
heighten a sense of fear by placing the reader 8. The speaker uses similes to make comparisons. Explain what is being
in a position without control. Imagery of the compared in the first two-thirds of the poem.
horror genre (eyeballs, disfigurement/paralysis, 9. Consider the simile in the last stanza. How does this comparison reveal a
nighttime, circles, otherworldly depictions of change in the speaker’s perspective?
nature) is also repeated frequently throughout
the text to illustrate fear and disorientation
through a supernatural atmosphere. Finally,
the sounds the speaker repeatedly notes the
sounds the deer makes in order to emphasize
how deeply it unsettled the speaker.
7. Responses may vary. By using second-person
pronouns, the speaker forces the reader into
the experience described in the poem. The 03_williamlit1e_46174_ch02_116_207.indd 154 22/09/22 9:44 AM
reader may feel tension growing as the speaker COMPREHENSION CHECK
describes what they do and what happens to
them. The ambiguity of the antecedents also 1. The speaker describes a scenario at the beginning of the text where a character is driving
creates an effect of confusion and disorientation while ________. [drunk/swerving]
(which likely mirror the emotional responses 2. The character initially hits a deer with his father’s ______. [car]
that the speaker felt). 3. Immediately after the accident, the character picks up the _______ in order to take it home.
8. After being hit and paralyzed, the doe is [deer]
compared to a bride, which may represent an 4. The speaker notes that a dent in his ______ is one of the things that haunts him. [nose]
early love or meaningful relationship that is lost 5. What other character does the speaker meet when he arrives home? [His father]
because of the speaker’s error.
9. By comparing his and his father’s act of
dumping the body to a criminal, the speaker TRM Unit 2: Comprehension Check Digital Comprehension Check
admits guilt and shame for the death of the
innocent and the speaker’s inability to fix an
issue out of his control (the mortality of the
deer’s wound).

154 Unit 2 Analyzing Comparisons and Representations

03_williamlitte1e_47545_ch02_116_207_3pp.indd 154 08/12/22 5:31 PM