The Image of Animals in Ted Hughes's "The Hawk in the Rain" and "The Thought Fox": A Textual Approach

Abstract

Ted Hughes is thought to be a great poet of the modern period. This study attempts to explain the images related to animals in Hughes’s two poems; “The Hawk in the Rain” and “The Thought Fox”. It then, explains how images are used to enable the poet to express himself. Also, how the images helped readers understand the poems easily will be shed light on. Finally, analysis and comparison of the selected poems; “The Thought Fox” and “The Hawk in the Rain” will be highlighted. It also indicates how the poet uses the animal imagery to symbolize something else as a source of inspiration or power in the first poem, and brutality, savagery and violence of nature towards animals in the second poem. Textual and analytical approaches are used in the analysis of the poems. The study unveils the poet’s deep feelings of the silent world of the animals in the darkness.