Analyze the poem below for its overall theme. In order to analyze this poem, you will need to understand the references to these
films: King Kong, Frankenstein, and Shane. Who is the dark stranger and what is the relationship of nature to the dark stranger.
Poem - Enter Dark Stranger:
In "Shane" when Jack Palance first appears, a stray cur takes one look and slinks away on tiptoes, able, we understand, to recognize something truly dark. So it seems when we appear, crunching through the woods. A robin c*cks her head, then hops off,
ready to fly like h*ll and leave us the worm. A chipmunk, peering out from his hole beneath a maple root, crash dives when he hears our step. The alarm sounds everywhere. Squirrels,
finches, butterflies flee for their lives. Imagine a snail picking up the hems of his shell and hauling a*s for cover. He's studied carnivores, seen the menu, noticed the escargots.
But forget Palance, who would have murdered Alabama just for fun. Think of Karloff's monster, full of lonely love but too hideous to bear; or Kong, bereft of Fay Wray shrieking in his hand: the flies buzz our heads like angry biplanes, and the ants hoist pitchforks to march on our ankles as we watch the burgher's daughter bob downstream in a ring of daisies.
