'Hawk Roosting And Mark Doty's Golden Retrievals'

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Animals can be used in literature to convey many things, including human views and experiences in the world. Ted Hughes’ poem “Hawk Roosting” and Mark Doty’s poem “Golden Retrievals” assist in showing these concepts. The first poem listed is clearly about a hawk, while the latter describes a dog. These two animals have very different characteristics and differing views of the world, which are exhibited by the several literary techniques used by the poets. Firstly, Ted Hughes characterizes the hawk in “Hawk Roosting” through using imagery, metaphor, and symbolism. The main instance of imagery occurs in the second stanza of the poem. “The convenience of the high trees! / The air’s buoyancy and the sun’s ray...” (Hughes 5-6). This shows the reader that the hawk enjoys being

where it resides, which is most likely a forest.

There is also one main metaphor within this poem. In the third stanza, the narrator states: “My feet are locked upon the rough bark. / It took the whole of Creation / To produce my foot, my each feather: / Now I hold Creation in my foot” (Hughes 9-12). To the reader, the hawk saying that it “holds Creation in his foot” sounds a lot like it has plenty of power over life, as if it were a god. The hawk sees itself as a supreme being with much control over everything else around it. In this poem, it can be interpreted by the audience that the hawk itself is a symbol of someone with absolutely too much power over a group of people. In the fourth stanza, the narrator says “I kill where I please because it is all mine. / There is no sophistry in my body: / My manners are tearing off heads -” (Hughes 14-16). The poem ends with the hawk saying “My eye has permitted no change. I am going to keep things like this” (Hughes 27-28). This shows that the hawk does not plan on ever changing its ways. In the next poem, “Golden Retrievals,” the dog is characterized through Mark Doty’s use of rhyme, onomatopoeia, and tone. Rhythm is present in only the first half of the poem in an

AABBACC rhyme scheme. For the last eight lines, there is no specific rhyme scheme. The
reader can assume from this that the dog is quite intelligent and actually had a plan for what it wanted to say. As the poem continues, it loses its will to rhyme and says what it deems necessary to get its point across. For example, in lines five and six, the dog says “I’m off again: muck, pond, ditch, residue / of any thrillingly dead thing. And you?” (Doty). Here, the dog is organizedly describing what in the area catches its attention. But, in the following lines, the dog is more concerned with its owner’s thoughts and feelings. “Either you’re sunk in the past, half our walk, / thinking of what you never can bring back, / or else you’re off in some fog concerning / —tomorrow, is that what you call it?...” (Doty 7-10). The onomatopoeia in the poem gives the reader a sense of playfulness in the dog. In line ten through twelve of the poem, the narrator says “My work: / to unsnare time’s warp (and woof!), retrieving, / my haze-headed friend, you” (Doty). This instance of onomatopoeia is used to remind the reader that this seemingly wise narrator is, indeed, a dog. This poem has more of an enthusiastic or optimistic tone throughout. The dog is just out, being the average dog with its owner, while trying to bring the owner out of his or her gloom. “This shining bark, / a Zen master’s bronzy gong, calls you here, / entirely, now: bow-wow, bow-wow, bow-wow” (Doty 12-14). Here, the dog is trying to use its playful nature to cheer up and distract its owner from what is holding him or her back.These two animals have completely different views on the world and what surrounds them in their lives. While the hawk has a more superior mindset over the other animals, the dog is more concerned with making sure his owner is happy with everything. This can be interpreted as a privileged person with a lot of power (the hawk) versus someone with no privilege or power whatsoever (the dog). The person with all the power focuses more on maintaining his or her control over everyone else, which doesn’t benefit anyone but his or herself. On the contrary, the
person with nothing is more focused on helping others, while maintaining a positive outlook on life. These two poems provided in the prompt can be used to help people understand different views on the world through the use of animals. “Hawk Roosting” by Ted Hughes uses a hawk to convey one view, while “Golden Retrievals” by Mark Doty uses a dog to convey another. Both of these views contrast each other one hundred percent, giving the reader a complete feel of each side. In these poems, Hughes and Doty use the animals to show humans more about themselves that they may have not already known.