On Lacking the Killer Instinct Flashcards
Poet is trying to escape the stress of her father’s illness. She has surrounded herself by nature up in the hills.
I fled up into the hills, that time
My father was dying in a hospital
Grotesque image of the hare fleeing from greyhounds chasing it. Hare is a metaphor for the father’s story.
Two greyhounds tumbling over, absurdly gross,
While the hare shoots off to the left
She seems to have an admiration for this hare. Although it is being chased, it is in total control.
Full not only of speed and fear
But surely in the moment a glad power
Simile comparing the hare to her father during the War of Independence, fleeing from the British. Alliteration. Reflection on his life as he dies.
Like my father, running from a lorry-load of soldiers
In nineteen twenty-one, nineteen years old
Simile. The hare and her father never should have been hunted. But they were both intelligent enough to evade their predators.
The hare
Like him should never have been coursed,
But, clever, she gets off; another day
Intelligence of the hare and how it evades the dogs.
She’ll fool the stupid dogs, double back
On her own scent, downhill
Personification of the lorry. A likeness between the lorry and the dogs.
The lorry was growling
Description of how her father also took a risk to try and escape.
he saw a house
And risked an open kitchen door.
Description of how her father also evaded his captors. Made himself look like a part of the family. Outwitted the soldiers.
The soldiers
Found six people in a country kitchen, one
Drying his face, dazed-looking
His evasion technique was a success
The lorry left
The father was victorious for another day
he came out
Into a blissful dawn.
Poet questions the morals of her father’s actions. Sure, it was a good story, but what if it had gone wrong? He could have hurt those who helped him.
Should he have chanced that door?
If the sheltering house had been burned down, what good
Could all his bright running have done
For those that harboured him?
She also ran from a situation. Regrets her decision to run.
And I should not
Have run away
She reflects on the hare and how it could relax now unlike her father.
And I thought about the hare, in her hour of ease
