Hawk Roosting by Ted Hughes Summary and Analysis

 ➥About the Author

    Ted Hughes was born on 17 August 1930 in the Yorkshire town of Mytholmroyd. He was a poet, translator, and children’s author. Hughes served in the Royal Air Force before going on to study anthropology and archaeology at Cambridge. At Cambridge, Ted Hughes developed an interest in mythology, which later went on to influence his work. In 1956, Hughes married Sylvia Plath, the American author and poet. In 1957, Ted Hughes won the First Book Contest. The competition was run by the Poetry Center and judged by esteemed poets such as W.H. Auden and Marianne Moore. The Hawk and the Rain (1957) won Hughes international acclaim and commercial success. Ted Hughes’ success continued throughout his long career, in his poetry collections, such as Lupercal (1960) and Birthday Letters (1998), children’s literature The Iron Man (1968), and anthologies such as The Rattle Bag (1982). Ted Hughes was also the executor of Sylvia Plath’s literary estate, editing much of her work. Ted Hughes had a troubled personal life. His first wife Sylvia Plath committed suicide shortly after their separation in 1963. The woman Hughes left Plath for, Assia Wevill, also took her own life and, tragically, the life of their young daughter Shura. Ted Hughes married again in 1970 and spent the remainder of his life writing and farming in Devon. He was Poet Laureate from 1984 until his death in 1998 from cancer.

Summary of the Text

    “Hawk Roosting” is a poem by Ted Hughes, who was one of the most famous writersof the 20th century. Hughes’s second collection, Lupercal, has a poem in which a hawk can talk and think. This makes the reader think about what it would be like to have the feelings, attitudes, and behaviors of such a creature. This explicit work relies on personification—the bird talks to itself like a person, describing violent scenes and claiming dominance. This means that the reader has to deal with ideas that go beyond animals and into the human realm, along with related psychological and political issues. Some critics say that the hawk’s cruel behavior, like that of a despot or tyrant who only cares about power, is a sign of fascism. In a very strong way, the poem wants to show that violence is not a moral flaw in the hawk’s world, but an inevitable part of life.

    Hawk “Roosting” is told from the point of view of a hawk. It tells the hawk about all the things he can find in nature. He sleeps in the tall trees and looks for his food while he’s there. He thinks that everything around him is there just for him. Embracing his aggressive side, he has no fears and stakes his claim on everything. He thinks of himself as almost godlike, and everything around him is the way he thinks it is. 

   There is no evil in the first line. This picture shows the hawk getting ready for bed at resting time. His spot is safe; he’s high up in the trees and can see everything. There is one thing for sure: this hawk has its own thoughts. It can guess, just like a person.

    The second line will also make the reader think. That long, four-syllable word “falsifying” means something bad. Right now, this term, which means to mislead, doesn’t have a clear meaning, but it points to a connection with people, who can mislead each other. It is impossible for this bird to be anything else.

   This hawk has worked out all of it, from the tree to the ground, his body suits. When you’re up high, you have a clear view and control. The upward force and warmth of the air are there for you to use. Even the earth is moving in the right way, so a close study is a given.

    One more time, look at the feet as they close in on the tree bark. Keep in mind that the first lines of 5 of the stanzas are complete on their own. Stop at the end. This means certainty and gives you power right away.

   We’re still talking about mastery, and this time we’re talking about the idea that this very powerful person controls all of creation. Some of the most important lines in the song are lines 10–12. They say that Creation itself helped make this hawk, and now the roles are turning around. The hawk is holding Creation and becoming the ruler of everything.

   The point of view changes because the hawk keeps talking, which isn’t a dream as we know it, but live comments.

   Now that the hawk is in the air, it is watching the earth spin while getting ready to kill. It’s that four-letter word that came up in the first line of the poem again: “kill.” That act is so common and normal in the world of predators, but it’s so shocking and hard to deal with in the world of humans. The words are simple, but they are full of arrogance and anger.

   The hawk offers appropriate deaths; that’s the goal of the steady path when it’s about to strike “through the bones,” which is a scary but accurate phrase. It kills without meaning to; the bird world doesn’t allow it; environmental rules don’t apply. 

   The sun is all a hawk wants. The sun is going down right now. From the hawk’s point of view, nothing has changed and never will. Anytime the hawk fixes its all-seeing eye, its determination to stay the same will last. From the hawk’s point of view, this last line sums up life and death. When it talks, it’s kind of like a pure ego—unmixed, real, and true to itself.

Critical Analysis

  According to its most precise interpretation, Ted Hughes’ poem “Hawk Roosting” is about a hawk sitting on a tree and thinking about how powerful it is at destroying things, how it can stop change, and how arrogant and proud it is of itself.

   But because it’s easy to see that the bird has human traits, we can easily see that the poem is a subtle jab at a ruler that the bird stands for. It is more common to say that the bird represents the bad things in people, like arrogance, destructiveness, an immodest and egotistical point of view, an obsession with energy, and tyranny. In short, the hawk represents inhumanity.

   The poem tells a story from the first-person point of view and represents the ideas through the thoughts of the hawk or the poet, if the poet thinks that the words of the poem move through the hawk’s thoughts. Hawks, which are birds of prey, are mean, cruel, and proud animals. The poem gives us a strong picture of the hawk’s spirit, or personality—of how the life force that we see in it actually shows itself.

    The hawk says something short and sharp. I’m sitting on top of the woods. There, I closed my eyes and did nothing because I thought that was the right time to relax. The ground is firm under my feet and head. I think about how great I am at killing and eating even when I’m asleep. The poem can be summed up like this: “I am the being perched on the overgrown trees.” The sun’s rays and the way the air floats are good for me. The earth shows me its face up so I can look at it. I am paying close attention to all of the above problems. God actually planned for these problems to happen.

    I can’t move my feet off the tree’s bark now. I’m a beautiful creation of God. For God’s sake, it took a lot of time and energy to give me my feet and feathers. God made me to kill different birds for my own good—” Now I hold creation in my foot.” I’m a free spirit in the sky. I slowly spin around as I fly up. I can kill wherever and whenever I want because they are all mine. There is no trickery or fraud in me. I become cruel and bloodthirsty, and whenever I want, I rip off their heads.

   I give death. I am the embodiment of death. I take a straight flight by the house’s bones. I’m not interested in arguing. I can restrain and kill anyone I want, and I will do so whenever I want. The sun is behind me as I swoop down to catch my meal. I’ve been doing the same thing for a very long time. Since I began, nothing has changed. I’d like to keep the same thing. I don’t let any changes happen. I stand up for my energy and managing, which are pure to me.

    The poem wants people to be active in responding to it. In this case, the author isn’t just talking about the hawk. Hawk talks with a certain amount of confidence. This is how the cruel power of nature shows itself. As a result, it is a picture of the very strong, cruel, and deadly physical power that is not based on any kind of morals and has no mercy, humanity, or humility. It can also stand for cruel leaders who only know how to control and kill people. What makes the poem important is how it relates to real life. By describing the hawk’s self-manifested will, the poet lets us condemn the cruel and heartless rulers of the world.

    It’s even more than that. As science and technology have helped humanity advance, people have tried to control everything around them. The poet makes fun of this by suggesting that it is man’s hopeless pride, or “hubris.” In the process, people have forgotten about the civilized ideals that could give their lives meaning. Man in the modern world is driven by crazy urges and unmet obsessions. Even though the poem doesn’t use typical meter or figure of speech, the irony is clear because of how powerful the straight language is. Because the language is so simple and sparse, it gives the poem more ease and power and has a profoundly powerful effect on the readers’ conscience.