Question- Bring out the parallel suggested between the predatory instincts of the bird and human behaviour.

Answer -

Ted Hughes 'Hawk Roosting' narrates the internal power struggle of a hawk perceived through the technique of dramatic monologue. The situation of the hawk is similar with the condition of human beings who do not tend to illuminate on ideas or boundaries beyond the prescribed boundaries imposed by the society. Like humans, the animal world too, tends to gain authority. We all want to create a minuscule perspective of the world through our little vision and tend to formulate personal laws to perceive the large world. The hawk assumes the world from the position of where it is roosting and tries to uphold the authority of supreme upon himself, in absolute arrogance of the larger fallacies of the world. Similarly, it is with the humans as well, who try to usurp the dogmas of the world and manipulate them accordingly. Humans tend to arrest themselves as the sole inheritor of power, just like the hawk does. The constant struggle for survival has made humans design themselves as the actual mediators of the world despite the little truth contained in this thought. The predatory, narcissistic and dogmatic instincts are very much present in humans, in a very similar line as the hawk suggests itself to be. Humans like Hughes 'hawk are foolish creatures who weave their own graves in their dreamy conjectures.

important Explanations

1.

Reference - The above lines have been taken from the poem 'Hawk Roosting' by Ted Hughes.

Context - The poem in the form of a dramatic monologue, from the very onset deals with the haughtiness and arrogance of a bird like hawk which consider it his birth right to dominate the world and its inhabitants perched at its top most position.

Explanation -  The first line is pure innocence. Here is the hawk setting down for an evening's sleep at roosting time. The place he holds is safe on the high of the wood, overseeing all. Furthermore, the poet gets the reader to understand that hawk doesn't come to please anyone. In a way, the second line points towards the hawk's comparability with people, who're liable to mislead each other. The bird is pure raptor, cannot be anything. Making use of enjabment, the poet leads to line three and the repeated hooked simply to empharise that this hawk is physically spectacular and sharp. And there hooked features could be known as into action if the hawk falls asleep. Subconscious perfection of future hunts and kills.

2.

Reference - As above.

Context - Here the hawk assets his supremacy once again and states that he is a splendid creature by himself and that's the reason Mother Nature used the whole of it to create him and now he challenges the Mother Nature by holding the creation in his foot.

Explanation - In these lines, the theme of mastery continues, this time introducing the concept of the entire of creation being throughout the grasp of this extremely dominant figure.

Here Hughes makes use of the phrase 'Creation in my foot' to explain God. It is infact an allusion. Lines 10-12 are a focus within the poem for they counsel that Creation itself was concerned within the making of this hawk and that now, the roles are reversed so to talk. It's the hawk that's holding Creation, Changing into the master of all.

3.

Reference - As above.

Context -  Here the hawk makes it very clear that it has predatory instincts and is meant to kill anyone he pleases. He also states that there is no sophistication in him and is born to tear off the victims' heads.

Explanation - The hawk's perspective of being a killer, being God himself continues. Now the hawk's flying, watching the earth revolve because it makes its manner up and up in readiness for a kill. That all essential 4 letter phrase that first popped up within the opening stanza is here once more - kill I kill that act which is so frequent and regular within the predator's would but is so stunning and arduous to deal within the human world. The language is spare but stuff with conceitedness and fierceness.

Reference - As above.

Context - The hawk seems to challenge an unimportant element or force of nature and assets his superiority and obstinacy by stating that he would continue to be a dictator ruling the world and keeping the things the
same way.

Explanation -  All a hawk wants, is the sun. Right now the sun is setting. In the thoughts of the hawk, nothing has modified, nothing ever will change. As lengthy because the hawk has an eye-fixed, the all seeing eye, its will to stay the same shell permit.

This final stanza sums up the hawk's perspective to the life and death. In one sense, it's a pure ego that's taking undiluted, pure, true to itself.

...Prev | Next...