Theme to Shooting Rats at the Bibb County Dump and Reaction

Theme: The theme of this poem the nature of humans is not always good. The poem suggests that humans are just like rats. The human states, "let them crawl for all they're worth into the darkness we're headed for" (13-14) and before in the poem it says the rats "drag themselves…toward the darkness" (10-11). This means that the rats reside in the darkness of the dump and humans are headed there which represents humans are becoming like rats. It is also human nature that humans will always attack and kill each other like the drunken men did in the poem. And since they attacked the innocent rats, they can attack innocent civilians because humans are just like rats. The hunted are innocent because "it's the light they believe [is] what kills" (12), it shows that they do not know any better weather to think a bullet killed them or a light. If humans were always good natured they would not harm innocent creatures. We are both the hunters and the hunted in life. That is why the nature of humans is not always good.

Reaction: The first time I read this poem I really liked it because it was funny, they were shooting rats at a dump while they were drunk, I find that very funny. The second time I read it, I read it out loud in a British accent because they used the words "rubbish" (4), "rump" (7) and the phrase "we ride" (1). Those words and phrase just sound very British to me. At first I couldn't pick up on the theme, but once I examined and analyzed the poem I found it had a deeper meaning. I liked how the author took something so simple and funny and turned it into something with that deeper meaning. The message I am left with is that humans are not always good; we do stupid things and do not regret them like the drunken men in the poem. The drunken men "loa[d] on beer and whiskey" and "ride to the dump in carloads" (1-2), this proves they do stupid and carless things