“The Porpoises” has a much more aggressive tone than “Mountain Lion” which uses similes in order to describe death. The poem describes how the porpoises are condemned to die in horrid conditions in order to satisfy the villagers who finished with them with cleavers. The poems structure makes the poem be read in one swift blow leaving the reader with a remarkable cruel view of men. The first line introduces the irrational movement of the porpoises as “suicide”. What makes the porpoises swim into the harbour where they don’t have a chance to survive?
If in the opening sound and imagery are still slow are calm, it gradually increases in tension. It is like a surprise attack against the porpoises, which after they have “stranded” are killed. The harsh comparison in the simile “they lived as harmless as young children on the deep” marks the cruelty that the humans have done to creatures, which had no bad intention, which were as harmless as young children. The onomatopoeic sounds such as “rough vigour” and “deep affliction” are harsh words, which add violence to the poem reflecting the theme of cruelty. The metaphor “as they hang transparent to the uproar of the deep” highlights in my view the death of the porpoises. In the final stanza, the simile “smooth as wrack” makes me think of the end of nature because of humanity.
Had God intended humanity to kill nature? Should the porpoises “lay, bleeding, overheating” and “condemned to die” in order to satisfy the villagers? When the poet expresses, “I feel myself accused” due to his fail intervention in the slaughtering of the porpoises, I think of a man who means what he has written, and who believes in equality.
“Mountain Lion” on the other hand, uses a lot of imagery repetition such as the words “frost” and “dead” causing a rather frightful image. This time tension starts in the first few stanzas where the two friends meet the Mexicans who have murdered the mountain lion. The stanzas are short but straight forward and are full of tension, “They hesitated, we hesitated, they have a gun, we have a gun” making the reader foresee that something bad has taken place. The Mexican smiled “foolishly” and proudly after having said to have killed a mountain lion. The “long slim cat, yellow like a lioness” had been one with nature, had been part of nature and it’s life had been ended with the shot of a gun.
The simile “bright as frost” reflects the dead face of the lion, which had once been and still was a beautiful creature.
D.H.Lawrence uses several death-linking words such as “unfrozen” “beautiful dead eyes” and “blood-orange brilliant rocks” which makes the reader think of the sad death of the mountain lion.
It had been a pointless death, which the Mexicans had carried out just to prove their virility. Although the last stanza “and I think in the world beyond, how easily we might spare a million or two of humans and never miss them. Yet what a gap in the world, the missing white frost-face of that slim yellow mountain lion!” is sarcastically written, it has a touch of truth.
In conclusion, I think that both poems confrontate the reader with the violence people do to animals. Several techniques are used to do this such as diction, similes and metaphors. Both poets can be described as autobiographies, which make their character appeal very responsible. I do however believe that “The Porpoises” by D.H.Lawrence has a greater impact on the reader due to its aggressive tone rather than a soft but moving story like “Mountain Lion”.
