“What Hughes admires about animals is their single-mindedness and self centeredness. For him, they have substantiality, a realness about them that conveys qualities of security, stability and permanence that human beings simply do not have. (11)”
The mentioned approach of Hughes can be related to Shamanism in this sense. In Shamanism animals are regarded as sources for spiritual voyages which take the individual to a place where they can discover their true selves. Shamans use animals as symbols to reach superhuman qualities which are free from the boundaries of taboos created by the society. In this sense, it becomes possible to say that Hughes uses animal imagery in a very similar manner, as he also emphasizes that one should be true to himself.
Taking a closer look at the poem The Thought-Fox, the reader comes to the realization that similar themes are once more revealed also in this poem. The poem takes place during winter time and at night when the poet is alone and as he is trying to write. Night time is chosen as the setting of the poem, since within the silence and loneliness of the night, people get the chance to turn more inward, far from the crowd and hassle of the day. As a remark of time, the poet mentions the clock which is alive and ticks through the night. Within this silence the poet mentions that there is something else which is alive and out there. Moving on to the second stanza, there is total darkness and there are no stars to be seen. Something is approaching and the poet can sense it, not through his senses, but through his instincts. Bu using the word “deeper”, the deepness of the inner self is revealed. The senses are in this case limited but the instincts, which lie in the deepest places of human consciousness is present and a creature which is felt through the poets instincts in entering his loneliness. In the third stanza, the mysterious encounter is revealed as it is a fox, which moves as delicately and as silently as snow. The fox tries to find his way through his nose in the forest as it touches twig and leaf. Sniffing through the forest, the last two lines of this stanza saying, “Two eyes serve a movement, that now, and again now, and now, and now,” mark a continuity and simplicity of the fox’s movements through the repetition of the word “now”. The eyes check their surrounding thinking only of the present time being. What matters for the fox is only present time. Not the past, the future but “now”. The plainness and instinctive attitude of the animal is revealed by this behavior, since he is different than humans who live on a time concept. However the fox, being an animal and living through its instincts, is only concerned about present time and this behavior continues. The fourth stanza rhymes with the last line of the third stanza, and says that the fox is leaving his paw prints in the snow. The rest of the stanza describes the movements of the fox and it draws the picture of the fox as it sniffs the ground, walks a little, then pauses to check what’s around it, then continues to walk fast again, then pauses again. The words “lame“and “lag” in these stanzas are used to describe the pausing movements of the fox and “a body that is bold to come” describes the fast movements of the fox after its pauses. In the next stanza the poet draws attention to the eyes of the fox which are green, and in this sense can symbolize nature its self, and thus, fertility. The description of the eyes makes the reader visualize them and try to see the meaning in them. Although it is an animal, the eyes of the fox are described as deep and as meaningfull. The last line of this stanza marks that the fox is only concerned about its own business and that it doesn’t have any after thoughts. This state of the fox is perfectionalized since it is brilliantly and concentratelly only concerned about itself and its own business. The last stanza changes the appearance of the fox from a physical being to a rather spiritual being, since it jumps into the mind of the poet with a fast movement. The night is still starless and the clock continues to tick, so everything seems like it was when the poet first started to write his poem, but now the page is printed. The scene which the poet creates with the images he uses is like a fox first roaming through the forest in the night, then suddenly looking directly in the eyes of the poet, and entering his mind through his eyes. Thus, at the end of the poem, the poet has created something out of nothingness and printed it on the paper through the appearance of the fox. The fox has become the poem and the poem has become the fox. Most probably at the very beginning of the poem the poet was staring out of the window for inspiration with a blank paper in front of him. At the very end of the poem, his page is printed and the thought of the fox is now in his head. So it might be possible to say that inspiration doesn’t come from the outside but from within, through the instincts. As in most of Hughes animal poems, the fox is once more used as a symbol of the deepest instincts. The plainness and simplicity of the animal, and it only thinking of the present time being, minding only its own business, creates a contrast with the general human state, which is far from achieving these qualities. Since at the very end of the poem the page is printed, the poet is trying to say that one can only reach inspiration if he sets his instincts free just like animals are capable of doing. Regarding this poem Hughes states in his book, Poetry in The Making, “And I suppose, that long after I am gone, as long as a copy of the poem exists, every time anyone reads it the fox will get up somewhere out of the darkness and come walking towards them. (20)” At this stage it becomes possible to say that the Shamanistic features which Hughes uses are once more present also in this poem, as he gives the fox spiritual, holly and supernatural powers. Hughes once more states in Poetry in The Making,
“So, you see, in some ways my fox is better than an ordinary fox. It will live forever; it will never suffer from hunger or hounds. I have it with me wherever I go. And I made it. And all through imagining it clearly enough and finding the living words” (21).
As stated in the quotation, Hughes’ animals are not ordinary and they are shifted from natural beings to supernatural creatures.
As in his poem “Ghost crabs” Hughes draws the picture of these harmless crabs as nightmarish and violent creatures. The poem opens with the description of a sea shore at night. The darkness of the night is deep and covers the whole area, the gulfs and the submarine badlands. Then the poem continues with the description of the tide. Hughes chooses the image of rocks to describe his crabs as he says, “It look like rocks uncovering, mangling their pallor”, as it is night time, the sea retreats and uncovers the rocks which are normally hidden under the sea water. As the waters retreat, the crabs appear and look like glistering nacelles due to their hard shells. When the waters of the sea retreat, the crabs appear moving towards the land from the sea. The words “flat skulls” which are used to describe the crabs give them a creepy image, which strengthens the ghostly image of the crabs that are described in Hughes poem. Hughes calls these animals “ghosts” as they appear only at night and approach the land in a mysterious way and as they appear only during the tide. The word “emerge” also adds a ghost like image to these crabs as they aren’t seen properly in the darkness of the night. These crabs appear in the poem like thousands of crabs reaching the shore to invade man’s land. The stanza “of tall and staggering specters” once more reveals the image of ghosts in these crabs. Man’s walls and bodies are not their concern, since their hungers are homing elsewhere. The crabs in this poem appear as primitive invaders who don’t have any limits to their moves. The stanza “In a slow mineral fury” expresses the anger of these crabs which lies in their nature. After the broad description of the crabs and their moves, the poem continues by the description of man’s state, acting as a comparison to the state of these animals. The stanzas, “Press throughout nothingness where we sprawl on beds, / Or sit in rooms. Our dreams are ruffled maybe,” put forth the meaningless life of man which is based on civilization that limits him. The image of beds and rooms function as the limits which are present in man’s life and contrary to the crabs which have no limit. Man is doomed to live in a limited world in which he is unable to express himself freely. The stanza which continues as “Or we jerk awake to the world of possessions “once more states the present state of man which is founded upon the meaningless possessions. The image “to jerk awake” also strengthens the image of the restless state of man, who has “ruffled dreams” which can be considered as nightmares. The image of “brains jamming blind” in the next stanza, once more reveals the state of man’s mind, which is blind to its own nature, due to the limits and the restlessness he feels for being unable to live his own true nature. In addition to the state of man, the image of the “bulb-light” can be considered as the artificial vision of man. While these crabs are able to find their ways in total darkness without any help of any artificial source since they are based on their instincts, man is so blind to his own instincts and his own nature, that he can only break the darkness through a bulb-light, which is artificial and can only give limited light for a limited time being. After the comparison of the crabs and the state of man, the poem continues by saying that these crabs own this world. Putting forth a violent scene where the crabs mount each other, stalk each other and tear each other to pieces, Hughes draws the picture of nature itself and he also feels some sort of fear towards these creatures since they would kill each other with a natural instinct and indifference. The violent description of these crabs also links them to their own nature and to their powerful existance and compared to the strength and power of these animals, we are their bacteria. The inferiority of men is once more revealed through the image of a bacteria which is so small that it is unable to be seen through a naked eye. In the following stanza saying, “dying their lives and living their deaths,” Hughes gives reference to the Greek thinker Heraclitus who says, “immortals are mortals, mortals are immortals, living their death, dying their life,” which points out the continuity of life and the never ending circle of nature. Giving reference to Heraclitus, Hughes even strengthens the meaning of the perfect routine of nature, which human beings are unable to feel. Towards the end of the poem Hughes draws the picture of these crabs as they retreat in to the sea when the tide is about to end and when day light reaches the land. The stanza saying, “they are the turmoil of history” points out that the behaviors of these crabs has always been like this though out history and that they have managed to preserve their existence on earth. The stanza saying, “to them, our cluttered countries are empty battleground” even strengthens the meaning of man’s nothingness and the continual existence of these crabs, since they have been present on this earth and they have been acting in the same manner all though history. Man’s existence and shifting state on this earth is only an empty battleground for them. Since the crabs are described like warriors invading a land every night, the image of man’s empty battleground makes sense. The following stanza saying, “All they recuperate under the sea,“ once again puts forth the warriour image. Tye crabs spend the day under water to heal and prepare themselves to another war to begin when night falls just like heroic and savage warriours. The final stanza saying “ they are God’s only toys” makes the poem end in a stronger sense of fear, since the continuity which he mentioned by giving reference to Heraclitus a couple of stanzas above, can be changed any time, due to these beings directly related to their instincts and thus to God. Human beings are insignificant in the universe and therefore there animals become God’s only toys. For this reason, Hughes sees something in these crabs which is far more beyond the understanding of humans. Taking a general look at the poem, Hughes first draws the picture of thousands of warrior crabs emerging from the dark sea water towards the land and approaching towards the lands which are invaded by man. The danger cannot be seen since these crabs are like ghosts only appearing at night and making their existence known with a manner which is beyond human comprehension. Compared to the meaninglessness of man’s life which consists of possessions and limitations, these crabs are unstoppable and they can achieve anything. They have no limits and they are directly linked to nature and their instincts. They are parts of the continual circle of nature and they have managed to exist in the same way all through the history. As one of the typical aspects of Hughes animal poetry, he once more makes the original ghost crabs appear in a much more spiritual and powerful form. As stated in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_crab, “Ghost crabs, also called sand crabs, are of the genus Ocypode, common shore in many countries. In the south eastern , is frequently seen scurrying along beaches between and . These are called ghosts because they are , and because of their ability to disappear from sight almost instantly, scuttling at speeds up to 10 , while making sharp directional changes.” Despite the fact that the real ghost crabs species is far from the scaring description in the poem, Hughes, in his Shamanist attitude, has managed to see another side of these harmless creatures and described them as violent warriors which cannot be stopped. As Hirsberg stated,
“The flow of Hughes’ poetry moves from a Shamanist identification with powerful, violent and destructive predators like the hawk, the bear, the Jaguar and the pike expressed in a style at once self-controlled, self-possessed and vehement, through a series of changes to come. “ (211)
Perceiving animals in such a powerful manner is again related to Hughes’s belief that man is too limited and far from its instincts that it becomes less powerful when compared to animals. Hughes describes his approach towards animals in a plain manner in the book Winter Pollen Occasional Prose- Ted Hughes, edited by William Scammell,
“In a way, I suppose, I think of poems as a sort of animals. They have their own life, like animals, by which I mean that they seem quite separate from any person, even from their author, and nothing can be added to them or taken away from them. .. They know something special. Something perhaps which are very curious to learn.” (10)
The wisdom of animals and their capacity of knowledge may be the reason why they appear so powerful and thus destructive in Hughes poems, especially in Ghost Crabs. In another book titled The Poetry of Ted Hughes- Form and Imagination, by Leonard M. Scigaj, Hughes states that his poems are “attempts to prove the realness of the world and of myself in this world by establishing the realness of my relation to it. Another way of saying this might be- the poems celebrate the pure solidity of my illusion of the world.”(34) Thus, Speaking in general terms, it can be said that Hughes animal poetry is based on the Shamanist idea that animals are more powerful and spiritual beings when compared to man, since they live a totally instinct based life. Animals are far from limits and social values, thus they are capable of living their own self true nature and that specialty makes them powerful and wise. Man, on the other hand, is far from living its own true nature due to the limitations and social values which block the instincts. Thus, man is not free, confused, ignorance and lost.
Comparing Hughes’s animal imagery to D. H. Lawrence’s animal imagery, it would be possible to say that Hughes was deeply inspired by D. H. Lawrence and that both their animal imageries are based on the same theme of man’s ignorance and animals’ wisdom. Especially in one of D. H. Lawrence’s most famous poems The Snake, the poet adopts a similar attitude to Hughes’. Roughly speaking, in the poem The Snake, the poet comes across a snake and harms him and later feels regret for having done this. He puts the blame on his education for being a human being and describes the snake as a king at the very end of the poem. Here, the theme of animals’ superiority to human beings is once more seen similar to Hughes poetry. The similarity of the theme in animal poems links these two poets together. One other similarity that these two poets use pathetic fallacy which is the treatment of inanimate objects or animals as if they had human feelings, thought, or sensations. Both of the poets use their empathicall power to reveal the feelings of their animals through this technique. However there are also some differences which can be mentioned about these two poets. While Hughes draws the picture of his animals in a spiritual and a supernatural manner, D.H. Lawrence’s animals appear in a more natural form. One other difference can be regarded as the destructive and aggressive appearance of Hughes animals, while D. H. Lawrence chooses to use a mild and soft appearance for his animals.
Works cited
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Hirsberg, Stuart, Myth in The Poetry of Ted Hughes, Barnes and Noble Books, USA, 1981
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M. Scigaj, Leonard, The Poetry of Ted Hughes- Form and Imagination, University of Iowa Press, Iowa City, 1986
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Sagar, Keith, The Achievement of Ted Hughes, The University of Georgia Press, Athens, Georgia, 1983
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Scammell, William, Winter Pollen Occasional Prose- Ted Hughes, Faber and Faber Limited, London, 1994
e-sources
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_crab
The Jaguar
The apes yawn and adore their fleas in the sun.
The parrots shriek as if they were on fire, or strut
Like cheap tarts to attract the stroller with the nut.
Fatigued with indolence, tiger and lion
Lie still as the sun. The boa-constrictor’s coil
Is a fossil. Cage after cage seems empty, or
Stinks of sleepers from the breathing straw.
It might be painted on a nursery wall.
But who runs like the rest past these arrives
At a cage where the crowd stands, stares, mesmerized,
As a child at a dream, at a jaguar hurrying enraged
Through prison darkness after the drills of his eyes
On a short fierce fuse. Not in boredom—
The eye satisfied to be blind in fire,
By the bang of blood in the brain deaf the ear—
He spins from the bars, but there’s no cage to him
More than to the visionary his cell:
His stride is wildernesses of freedom:
The world rolls under the long thrust of his heel.
Over the cage floor the horizons come.
The Thought-Fox
I imagine this midnight moment's forest:
Something else is alive
Beside the clock's loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move.
Through the window I see no star:
Something more near
Though deeper within darkness
Is entering the loneliness:
Cold, delicately as the dark snow
A fox's nose touches twig, leaf;
Two eyes serve a movement, that now
And again now, and now, and now
Sets neat prints into the snow
Between trees, and warily a lame
Shadow lags by stump and in hollow
Of a body that is bold to come
Across clearings, an eye,
A widening deepening greenness,
Brilliantly, concentratedly,
Coming about its own business
Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox
It enters the dark hole of the head.
The window is starless still; the clock ticks,
The page is printed.
Ghost Crabs
At nightfall, as the sea darkens,
A depth darkness thickens, mustering from the
gulfs and the submarine badlands,
To the sea's edge. To begin with
It looks like rocks uncovering, mangling their pallor.
Gradually the labouring of the tide
Falls back from its productions.
Its power slips back from glistening nacelles,
and they are crabs.
Giant crabs, under flat skulls, staring inland
Like a packed trench of helmets.
Ghosts, they are ghost-crabs.
They emerge
An invisible disgorging of the sea's cold
Over the man who strolls along the sands.
They spill inland, into the smoking purple
Of our woods and towns—a bristling surge
Of tall and staggering spectres
Gliding like shocks through water.
Our walls, our bodies, are no problem to them.
Their hungers are homing elsewhere.
We cannot see them or turn our minds from them.
Their bubbling mouths, their eyes
In a slow mineral fury
Press through our nothingness where we sprawl on
our beds.
Or sit in our rooms. Our dreams are ruffled maybe.
Or we jerk awake to the world of our possessions
With a gasp, in a sweat burst, brains jamming blind
Into the bulb-light. Sometimes, for minutes, a sliding
Staring
Thickness of silence
Presses between us. These crabs own this world.
All night, around us or through us.
They stalk each other, they fasten on to each other.
They mount each other, they tear each other to pieces.
They utterly exhaust each other.
They are the powers of this world.
We are their bacteria.
Dying their lives and living their deaths.
At dawn, they sidle back under the sea's edge.
They are the turmoil of history, the convulsion
In the roots of blood, in the cycles of concurrence.
To them, our cluttered countries are empty battleground.
All day they recuperate under the sea.
Their singing is like a thin sea-wind flexing in the rocks of a headland.
Where only crabs listen.
They are God's only toys.
