Pike Flashcards
Who wrote Pike
Ted Hughes
When was Pike published
1960 in luperical
What is the structure/form of pike
Eleven stanzas written in Quatrains
Capitalised letters to emphasise appeal of pike
Free verse
Apostrophe form
What is the theme of Pike
Reminiscing childhood
Beauty and brutality of childhood/nature
What is the tone of Pike
Reminiscent
Reverent tone throughout- respectful tone in awe of the Pike
Context of Pike
- The night before wedding in June 1956 Hughes dreamt he caught an enormous Pike that filled the lake and he couldn’t control it
- He attaches fishing to his childhood/spirit of past self
- Hughes stated that he was ‘putting the individual back in contact with the primitive being’
Quick overview of Pike
The Pike is divided in 3 parts. The first part is admiration of the Pike in the water, The second Part is the speaker reminiscing his childhood that gave him the lesson that the strong ones survive and the others dont.
The third part discusses his respect and fear for the fish, whose eyes and malevolent grin still haunt him at night.
4th stanzas Hughes is feeding human food to fish to show how he’s nurturing dangerous things
Quick Language techniques
- Metaphor of England can be satire and can be considered to have a hyperbole
- ‘Tigering the gold’ - Metaphor to show colour of fish
- ‘Delicacy and horror’ - Anthesis
- ‘A pond i fished, fifty yards across’ - Intertextual allusion to Crookhill estate where he fished in teens near a church.
- ‘immense’ - repetition, the pike is overpowering .
- ‘Frail on my ear against the dream’ Sensory imagery showing sensitivity
- ‘the outside eye stared; as a vice looks’ simile shows how sharp the pike is
- ‘perfect pike’ alliteration showing the pike is fastidious
- ‘delicacy and horror’ antithesis
- ‘the gills kneading quietly and the pectorals’ shows he’s a muscular character.
- ‘grin’ repetition, Connotation of grin.
