In a close reading of 'The Thought-Fox' and 'Roe-Deer', discuss how he uses, the theme of nature. You should analyse his use of language. (Poetry - Ted Hughes)

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In a close reading of ‘The Thought-Fox’ and ‘Roe-Deer’, discuss how he uses, the theme of nature. You should analyse his use of language.

Poetry – Ted Hughes

   Various poems by Ted Hughes explore the world of nature and describe the power and mystery of animals. Two particular poems that convey Ted Hughes’ theme of nature are the celebrated ‘The Thought-Fox’ and ‘Roe Deer’.

   When Ted Hughes was only a young boy, he had a love for animals as “he spent a good deal of time hunting and trapping”. At the age of about fifteen, Hughes’ “attitude towards animals changed.” He “accused” himself “of disturbing their lives.” And ever since then, he began to look at them “from their own point of view.”

   This led to him beginning writing about animals in his poetry shortly after he began writing poetry.

   Hughes realized from an early time, well before he wrote his first animal poem that the hunting that he did so much was similar to his thought process, “the slightly mesmerized and quite involuntary concentration with which you make out the stirrings of a new poem in your mind, then the outline, the mass and colour and clean final form of it, the unique living reality of it in the midst of general lifelessness.” And then the poem created from that thought process was “a new species of creature, a new specimen of life outside your own”. This was his way of equating a poem.

   ‘The Thought-Fox itself is very similar to Hughes’ idea of creating all poems. The poet personifies his thoughts by using a fox.

   The poem is an analogy as well as a metaphor. The thought process and progression to writing is compared to a fox alone in the wilderness creeping up on you out of the darkness into the light.

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   The coldness, the snow doesn’t move i.e. it is stagnant but the fox does. This is similar to the mind as the brain which harbours the thoughts don’t move anywhere, yet the thoughts inside are always being created.

   The first stanza shows that Hughes knows there is ‘Something else alive’, i.e. he knows there is something to write about on ‘this blank page’, has two meaning. This shows that he is looking for some inspiration, or a thought.

   ‘this blank page’ could have two meanings to it. He could be talking about the paper he is writing ...

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