Pike Ted Hughes

Pike Ted Hughes

Choose a poem you studied recently which challenges the reader to view

something familiar in a new and thought provoking way.

Pike

Ted Hughes

Stanzas one to four of the poem are there to describe the Pike, its

nature, what it looks like and it’s destiny in nature as a predator.

The poet, Ted Hughes, in writing this poem challenges the reader to

view nature in a totally new perspective by exploring the power and

violence in it by using one animal in river life, the Pike, since the

Pike is the supreme species of fish in river life he uses it to full

extend to show the power and violence of nature. Hughes starts the

poem with “Pike, three inches long, perfect” using this as a start to

describing the Pike, he begins to build up the Pike’s image as a

predator, always being a predator with no change required through

evolution therefore using “perfect” as another way of saying that the

pike was designed perfectly as a predator and will never need to

change as it will always remain supreme in its habitat. “Pike in all

parts, green tigering the gold” the use of the word “tigering” giving

a comparison of the Pike to the Tiger, completely different creatures

but in their own worlds they are just as deadly as each other, the

Tiger being supreme in the jungle just as the Pike is supreme in the

river. “Killers from the egg” using this Hughes re-enforces his point

of the Pike being born to killer, always meant to be a predator. “The

malevolent aged grin” the poet strongly uses “malevolent” to catch the

reader and fully describe the evil that the Pike is designed for, even

since the moment of birth the Pike’s features have already been aged

with the evil, menacing look, to show its potential fo...

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...move, the

still splashes on he dark pond”. Assuming that the poet was on a

small boat “owls hushing the floating woods” he hears the owls in the

woods that seems to float as he sits on this boat, “frail on my ear

against the dream” just managing to hear the owls as the only noise -

almost as if the owls “hushing” the rest of the woods to be silent,

adding more fear to this trip – just keeping him aware of this world

that seems so much like a dream. “Darkness beneath night’s darkness

had freed” this meaning the darkness of the water beneath the night’s

darkness and also the darkness of the Pike, as darkness is associated

with evil, now moving “freed” under him, “that rose slowly towards me,

watching.” The pike, the evil slowly rising towards him watching his

every move, he makes it as if the pike seeing him as prey, slowly

approaching him, ready to strike.