Hawk Roosting by Ted Hughs Flashcards
1
Q
Story + message of ‘Hawk Roosting’:
A
- Narrator is the hawk – expresses control it has over the natural world, arrogant, states all the different ways the hawk has power
- Depiction of instinctual animal behaviour
2
Q
Tone of Hawk Roosting:
A
- The mood and tone of the poem may be considered direct and uncompromising.
- The possessive personal pronoun suggests that nature is set out for his use
- There is a slightly militaristic tone to the stanzas and the fact that he can do everything without even having to use the senses – “my eyes closed”
- The bird is superior to man and that affects how he thinks and looks at things
- There is a sense of authority and arrogance in the hawk
3
Q
Imagery of Hawk Roosting:
A
- Imagery of instinctual animal behaviour – hunting prey
- Imagery of power the hawk has over the natural world is created – emphasises the arrogance of the hawk
4
Q
Where was Hughes born and and where did he grow up?
A
Born in Yorkshire and grew up in countryside
5
Q
What did Hughes work as?
A
After serving in RAF for 2 years he won a scholarship to Cambridge University
6
Q
What was prevalent in his poetry
A
The themes of the countryside, human history and mythology already deeply influenced his imagination by the time he started writing poetry as a student
7
Q
What was Hughes’s intention with Hawk Roosting?
A
- The stark lack of emotion in this voice, along with the intelligence of the word choices and the pride the hawk feels for itself, have led some readers to believe that the author’s intention in writing this poem was to glorify violence, or at least to make violent behaviour acceptable
o Hughes answered this charge directly in a 1971 interview. “Actually what I had in mind was that in this hawk Nature is thinking. Simply Nature. It’s not so simple because maybe Nature is no longer so simple.”
8
Q
What did Hughes do regularly as a child
A
- As a boy Hughes regularly caught and tended wild animals around his home in Yorkshire - perhaps therefore he “thinks of poems as a sort of animal [that] have a vivid life of their own, outside mine.”
9
Q
“I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.”
A
- using personal pronoun “I”, Hughes shows that the hawk is asserting its superiority, excluding all other powerful entities
- the use of first person suggests ownership and the lack of ‘decorative’ imagery suggests that the subject is telling the plain and simple truth
- it dismissed God and Mother Nature and is totally focused on itself
- metaphorically above them
- Hawk’s eyes are closed, an irony as the term hawk-eyed usually signifies sharp-eyed perception – implication is that the hawk is so powerful and confident that it can afford to relax its scrutiny and close its eyes
- anthropomorphism
10
Q
“Between my hooked head and my hooked feet”
A
- “ee” sounds of ‘between’ and ‘feet’, may be imitating the sound of the hawk’s cry; an ear-piercing screech
- This long, double vowel is repeated throughout the poem in words like “tree”, “Creation”, “revolve”, “me” and “keep”
- repetition of ‘hooked’ is for emphasis; note that the words ‘hook’ and ‘hawk’ are consonant and similar
- A hook works for the hawk as a weapon - everything about this bird is designed for the kill
- reptation of “my” and “no” may indicate certainty in its own power and purpose
11
Q
“Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat”
A
- hawk even when sleeping visualises himself killing successfully in his dreams
- hawk is presented as a meticulous and ruthless killing machine – takes pride in killing his prey
- “feet” and “eat” rhyming couplet – effect of this couplet is precise and satisfying and controlled – reflecting hawk’s own decisive control of its habitat
- description of “perfect kills”, is from a human point of view, an oxymoron – from the hawk’s perspective this is the truth; the purpose of its existence
12
Q
“The convenience of the high trees! / The air’s buoyancy and the sun’s ray / Are of advantage to me;”
A
- sense of self-importance
- “convenience”, “buoyancy”, “advantage” and “inspection” examples of elevated diction spoken by the hawk – these words indicate that it is a very intelligent bird – implies hawk is mentally as well as physically superior
- elements seem to be tailor-made for its own gain; the hawk can avoid man-mad environments but reside in and dominate the serenity of nature itself
- hawk’s detachment from human contact makes it able for him to achieve this – the mention of the “sun’s rays” being a possessive show that it is in control of nature and is able to exploit it
- describes habitat as “of advantage” to it – as if they exist only for its benefit
13
Q
“My feet are locked upon the rough bark”
A
- hawk is an immovable force of nature – its feet “locked” – unrivalled in power and cunning
- words are clipped and monosyllabic with hard consonants
14
Q
“It took the whole of Creation /To produce my foot, my each feather: / Now I hold Creation in my foot”
A
- “Creation” is capitalised – refers not just to all that exists but to God
- the hawk and Creation are synonymous – arrogant tone suggests that the hawk views itself as the pinnacle of creation and superior to other creatures
- enjambment denotes long and difficult process of creation – an extended sentence to suggest a difficult and arduous task – hawk is exaggerating to further its self-importance
- “creation in my foot” – deluded, it sees itself as greater than God – it has effectively snatched power from the forces that made it
15
Q
“There is no sophistry in my body:”
A
- hawk thinks with its body and does not bother to convince itself of its right to act as it pleases – does not pause before it kills
- “sophistry” mean false reasoning – hawk doesn’t justify its killing – despite the claim of simplicity it then goes on to state that the “sun” approves it – typical reasoning of the brutal dictator
- indicates that hawk does not reason badly because it does not reason at all, it acts – poem seems toe express the idea that any amount of reasoning will have some falseness to it and that the only way to avoid falseness is to avoid reasoning
