Travel

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1921

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Symbols & Motifs

The Train

The train is perhaps the biggest symbol and metaphor in the poem. Symbolically, it not only represents progress and expansion, but it also represents freedom and movement. It is the counter and the answer to the speaker’s stasis, yet it is always moving far in the distance. Contextually, it signifies the key to mobility and freedom, with current place and situation rendering it inaccessible for the speaker. It is both persistent and even unsettling (Millay uses “shrieking” [Line 4] to describe it). It entices and startles. Perhaps it is the inner voice of the speaker, themself.

Place

Place plays a fundamental symbolic role in “Travel.” In its literal sense, it is both a destination to and a coveted departure from somewhere. For male writers at the time, it was unbridled territory. For the speaker in “Travel,” place is static, with the exception of night and day. Agency within it is non-existent. With the birth of a new day, the cycle of longing begins. Everything is prevalent in the daylight, signifying the speaker’s isolation even amongst others. The nightscape is a dream of access. The train is the only seam weaving in and out of the fragmented times of day.

Community and Relationships

The speaker, the people, and the friends are relatively nondescript, which opens a possibility of meaning depending on the person’s gender, age, and expected role in society. What is known is that the speaker remains distant, despite friends already made. The speaker conveys no rootedness in the community they are in. If the speaker is a woman, the reader might question from a feminist perspective: what does it mean to be a woman and feel no “maternal” or “nurturing” duty to cultivate relationships already existing by staying in one place? If the speaker is female, this is a bold venture and expression for the time period from which Millay was writing. It pokes holes in a woman’s assumed life trajectory and goals, and it exposes how unfulfilling those sex-role expectations were.