Ted Hughes "Pike" as an animal poem

Broad Question: Discuss ‘Pike’ as an animal poem.

Hughes’s depiction of the animals is vivid, startling, and interesting. The hawk, the thrush, the pike, the jaguar, the skylark, the horse, the cat, the mouse, the bull, the pig, the otter, the bullfrog and several others are presented in his poems with some meanings. Undoubtedly, the world of animals is Hughes’s favourite territory. But it is not just the description of animals which makes Hughes’s poetry unique. It is his treatment of animals which make him different from other writers dealing with animals.

The pike is a kind of fish. The first four stanzas of this poem contain a description of the pike. Pike is a “killer” from the very egg. The pike has a malevolent grin; and it dances on the surface of the water among the flies. The pike feels stunned by its own grandeur. Though it is not a long creature, it is a hundred feet long in its own watery world. It has jaws.The next three stanzas of the poem contain something different. There were three pikes kept in a glass-jar. Not having been fed, the three were first reduced to two and then to only one. In other words, the pikes are capable of eating one another in their hungry state. The poem ends with the speaker or the narrator describing his terror while fishing at night. In fact, he is no longer fishing for pike but he fears the presence of pike in his dream. Thus the appearance of the pikes creates terror in the mind of the poet.

As a perspective and thoughtful poet, he reveals his philosophical thoughts. Between human beings and animals, there are complex relationships. Simply, Hughes was inspecting animals in the wild nature. By deeper analysis of the relationship between animals and human beings, we can find that he was expressing his philosophical findings on human beings through those animals.

Pike is a kind of predatory fish that is greedy and brutal. Pike’s world is a microcosm of the human society. People having higher social status with power can always obtain more priority and enjoy more of life by defeating the weaker class. During this process, the stronger grows stronger and the weaker becomes feebler and finally die. Therefore, it is not right for human beings to say that animals are brutal or primitive. Such characteristics of animals are the true reflections of the violent side of human beings.

The ancient Greek fables, known as Aesop’s Fables, have existed for centuries and these fables depict animals presenting human nature. Hughes’s treatment of the animals is different: it is highly poetic, fanciful, symbolic, significant, expressive, illuminating, and “modern” both in content and in style. Through this presentation, he skillfully shows the similarity of animals with human beings in some cases.