Hawk Roosting (Ted Hughes)

Question 1

CONTEXT (AO3)

Answer 1

written by Ted Hughes 
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purpose 
- 
written in 1960s
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Question 2

STRUCTURE

Answer 2

• 6 quatrains

- free verse - mimics the Hawk’s autonomy and ability to control

Question 3

FORM

Question 4

‘ I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.’

Answer 4

‘I’ - PERSONAL PRONOUN - immediately asserting superiority - preoccupied with itself - dramatic monologue

‘top’ - METAPHOR - presenting himself above God and Mother Nature

‘my eyes closed’ - reflects confidence and power

Question 5

‘Between my hooked head and hooked feet:

Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.’

Answer 5

‘hooked’ - REPETITION

‘perfect’ - ADJECTIVE - prideful, meticulous, and ruthless

‘feet’ + ‘eat’ - RHYMING COUPLET - precise and controlled

Question 6

‘The convenience of the high trees!
The air’s buoyancy and the sun’s rays
Are of advantage to me;’

Answer 6

‘convenience…!’ - nature is tailor-made for the hawk - controls nature and can exploit it

‘!’ - exclamation

‘Are of advantage of me’ - ANASTROPHE - metaphorically in control of syntax and word order

‘

Question 7

‘locked’

Answer 7

unrivalled in power

Question 8

‘Now I hold Creation in my foot.’

Answer 8

ENJAMBMENT (within this stanza) - long process of it’s Creation - self-importance

creates a tone of arrogance - he believes he is the pinnacle of creation.

Question 9

‘I kill where I please because it is all mine.’

Answer 9

‘kill’ - assumes God-like powers (no conscience or concern)

MONOSYLLABIC - simplistic nature and ease in which it kills

‘it is all mine’ - entitlement

has a callous view on life - broken line = violence

Question 10

‘The allotment of death.’

Answer 10

angle of death

Question 11

‘The sun is behind me.’

Answer 11

lack of morality - Hawk itself in a position which precedes the Sun.

Question 12

‘Nothing has changed since I began.
My eye has permitted no change.
I am going to keep things like this.’

Answer 12

‘.’ - definitive

Question 13

Hawk Roosting

Answer 13

More generally, it could be said that the bird is a symbol of the human evils of arrogance, destructiveness, conceited and egotistical attitude, obsession of power and tyranny; in short, the hawk is a symbol of inhumanity.