Essay on Tractor by Ted Hughes
I’ve been studying a poem called Tractor by Ted Hughes. I am about to discuss how he makes the weather seem interesting throughout the duration of the poem.
This poem is about a tractor, a man and the battle against the weather. The tractor is hopelessly wedged under the snow and the man is repeatedly trying to start up the tractor but in vain as the weather defies this almost disallowing. It’s being defeated and progresses no further.
The tractor is affected by the weather as in the first stanza it is referred to as being in agony which makes it seem alive as though it could breath, this is an example of personification which he uses throughout the poem to add effect of it seeming to be alive. It says ‘snow packed it’s open entrails’, meaning the snow has filled up the inside of the tractor and it’s described as though it were a person via the word ‘entrails’. It is so cold outside that ‘a spill of molten ice’, smoking snow pours into its steel’, which suggests that the cold air is rising off the steel. In the poem it also says ‘at white heat of numbness it stands’. The word ‘heat’ is used in this instance because the freezing temperature makes it seem as though the tractor has frost bite which makes it seem hot, this is a form of personification. The fact that Hughes adopts personification and uses it to describe the tractor makes the battle against the weather seem more interesting so it makes you feel sorry for it as though it had feelings. In the poem it says ‘the battery is alive- but like a lamb’, this portrays that the battery is as week as a lamb which can be inferred. Also this is because the snow and the wind have frozen it. These are examples of how the weather is domineering although it refuses to let the tractor move. The tractor is also somewhat stubborn as ‘it defies flesh and won’t start’. Also words such as ‘cracks’ and ‘snapping’ are used to make the affects the weather is having more painful.
