To Paint a Water Lily - Ted Hughes believed that nature is far more violent and dangerous than man realises - How did he communicate this message in the poem?

To human ears, during the battle, loud humming noises can be overhead. These are the shouts of injured insects fighting for survival, fighting to the death. "There are battle- shouts everywhere and death- cries everywhere" We know that the humans are unaware when we are told that the battle- shouts are "inaudible". Humans only notice the beauty of the blood- sport, which they are unaware of, "so the eyes praise to see the colours of these flies".

Dinosaur creatures are the flies that dominate the lily pond. "Prehistoric bedragonned times crawl that darkness with Latin name". Latin is old and almost forgotten in today's society; Ted Hughes is describing the dragonflies like this also. The darkness improves our vision of this event; it creates the element of danger in our minds.

Ancient is the best word to describe the dragonflies here, for in the poet's eyes, whilst all of nature was evolving and improving itself the dragonflies did not, "have evolved no improvements there". They are just designed to hunt and to kill. Their bodies have no other function; over millions of years the "jaws for heads, and the set stare" have not evolved into greater things. They need these features to survive but one would have thought that these features would have improved dramatically over this great length of time.

Ted Hughes is trying to teach us about the lilies struggle to survive amidst the battles going on above its head. He also illustrates the ignorance of humans and our unwillingness to look beyond the beauty in fear of what we might find. We don not want to be confronted by the truth of death all around us. In order to survive the lilies have developed long necks to protect themselves from the overhead battles and the carnivore predators above them. They lay as still as they can in the water, so as not to be detected by the dragonflies set stare. This is a day- to- day struggle that they do not know how to resolve. "Ignorant of age as of hour- now paint the long necked lily- flower, which deep in both worlds, can be still as a painting, trembling hardly at all"

Ted Hughes has arranged his poem in couplets, however the sentences do not fit the lines and flow into the next verse. This is good because you can't stop reading until the end; it intrigues you until the very end. You may have to read it through several times to pick up parts that you have missed.

The poem is structured very well and keeps the reader interested at all times. In the end I have concluded that Ted Hughes was trying to explain to us that the poem is wild and out of control, you cannot fit it into specific lines and verses because nature is also wild and uncontrollable naturally. You cannot force nature into neat refined verses because it is not. I have enjoyed reading this poem. Overall it is well written and very easy to follow for the most part.

Catherine Jenkins 10o - Mrs Jones - Room 1