How Does Hughes Present Nature in ‘Hawk Roosting’?
How does Hughes present nature in ‘Hawk Roosting’?
Ted Hughes, the author of this poem, is trying to convey that nature isn’t always pretty thing. The hawk is a metaphor of humans because humans dominate the world as does the hawk in this poem. This poem has been written in 1st person so its like the hawk is speaking. The hawk’s tone of voice is proud, arrogant, confident and boastful. He also sees himself as the centre of the world and the best of creation. His whole life is spent awake; hunting or asleep; dreaming about hunting or killing. Almost every image in the poem relates to the hawks control and importance, which shows how highly he thinks of himself. The title of this poem is a contrast. The word hawk connotes killing, hunting, violence, fastness and over watching but the word roosting connotes calmness, relaxation and stillness. All the connotations of the word hawk are opposite to all the connotations of the word roosting, which shows the contrast of the title.
Ted Hughes uses lots of poetic techniques to create images in the readers mind, for example: Metaphors and smiles, Imagery, Alliteration, Repetition, Personification and Half rhyming.
In the first stanza line 1, Ted Hughes uses imagery for example: ‘I sit at the top of the wood, my eyes closed. Inaction’. ‘I sit at the top of the wood’ gives a real image of height and how high up the hawk is, watching everyone. ‘My eyes closed. Inaction’ shows that even though a hawk is quite a viscous bird, at this point he is relaxed. ‘Falsifying’ means false or incorrect, so ‘no falsifying dream’ suggests that he doesn’t dream about unreal things like humans do, he dreams about real things like killing and hunting for prey. Hughes uses alliteration in line 3, which is: ‘my hooked head’, this shows the shape of it’s head. A hook is a curve shape, so the head must have a roundish shape to it; again this is creating imagery in the reader’s mind.
In stanza 2 ‘the high trees, the airs buoyancy and the
Ted Hughes, the author of this poem, is trying to convey that nature isn’t always pretty thing. The hawk is a metaphor of humans because humans dominate the world as does the hawk in this poem. This poem has been written in 1st person so its like the hawk is speaking. The hawk’s tone of voice is proud, arrogant, confident and boastful. He also sees himself as the centre of the world and the best of creation. His whole life is spent awake; hunting or asleep; dreaming about hunting or killing. Almost every image in the poem relates to the hawks control and importance, which shows how highly he thinks of himself. The title of this poem is a contrast. The word hawk connotes killing, hunting, violence, fastness and over watching but the word roosting connotes calmness, relaxation and stillness. All the connotations of the word hawk are opposite to all the connotations of the word roosting, which shows the contrast of the title.
Ted Hughes uses lots of poetic techniques to create images in the readers mind, for example: Metaphors and smiles, Imagery, Alliteration, Repetition, Personification and Half rhyming.
In the first stanza line 1, Ted Hughes uses imagery for example: ‘I sit at the top of the wood, my eyes closed. Inaction’. ‘I sit at the top of the wood’ gives a real image of height and how high up the hawk is, watching everyone. ‘My eyes closed. Inaction’ shows that even though a hawk is quite a viscous bird, at this point he is relaxed. ‘Falsifying’ means false or incorrect, so ‘no falsifying dream’ suggests that he doesn’t dream about unreal things like humans do, he dreams about real things like killing and hunting for prey. Hughes uses alliteration in line 3, which is: ‘my hooked head’, this shows the shape of it’s head. A hook is a curve shape, so the head must have a roundish shape to it; again this is creating imagery in the reader’s mind.
In stanza 2 ‘the high trees, the airs buoyancy and the