I’m speaking from a completely non- pretentious place when I recommend that everyone reads Hughes’ epic series and masterpiece, Crow. It is actually genius. Like actually.
Crow unravels and weaves its way through an exploration of social behaviour, values and beliefs in a way that creates a rather frank and controversial commentary on the human race. The candour in which Hughes executes these exposés of the so called ‘superior species’ is what makes the collection both fascinating and compelling. It really doesn’t matter how much we as the reader agree or even disagree with the sentiments behind the work as Hughes manages to present us with a text that is left open to debate with room for many different readings and modes of analysis.
The world is a sea of individuals. Every single thinking entity constructs and upholds diverse interpretations, understandings and explanations when navigating their way through the many different identity defining elements and aspects of life. As a widely developed society we are often hailed as a diverse community which lawfully facilitates and endorses the opportunity for freedom of expression and opinion. Hughes is very forthcoming with his own opinions; the crude expressions and visions he relates in his poetry serve as a strong vehicle for driving home his viewpoints. He explores homosexuality, femininity, war, sex, death and religion in a way that it still contemporary and applicable to modern society 40 years on.
Anything that strikes up a spark of thought can ignite a roaring great passion and that’s the beauty of literature and freedom of expression. Every human being, as long as they are not inflicting harm upon others, should be afforded the right to both express and defend their beliefs and opinions. In a society which has generally become to be applauded for its progression from a 'traditional' and ‘repressed’ society into a 'liberal' and 'free thinking' one, I find it ironic that these ‘advancements’ in equality have inadvertently crashed a reversed wave of oppression and scorn upon those advocating Christianity.
Gay?... no bother.
Feminist?... sure.
War merchant?... why not?!
Rapist?... okay
Murderer?... go on then.
Christian? Nah, not a chance mate.
Okay so I’m taking liberties with the device of exaggeration, yet in many circumstances all these things are almost rated as more socially acceptable than the simple act of possessing a faith in God. Why is being a Christian such a social faux- pas; why is it tarnished as something so mock-worthy and met by utter abomination and disparagement by so many people? What is the big fricking deal?! I’m secure enough in my faith to afford me a pardon from castigating ‘non-believers’ so it really baffles me when said peoples can’t contain themselves from verbally crucifying Christians at every given opportunity.
I don’t meet someone who isn’t a Christian and think, ‘Ouuuughh... you’re a non-Christian...that is so not alternative or scene, you must have really low intelligence.’ So why do people feel the need to think the same about me for being a christian? Get over your ego and have the testicular fortitude to deal with the fact not everyone has to believe or [as the case may be] NOT believe in the same things.
Anyhoooooooooooooow, digressions aside...
... this is a synopsis I wrote as part of an English assignment on the collection Crow in relation to the notion of Ted Hughes as an animal poet. Ironically, given the nature of my degree, it has actually been surprising rare that I engage with a text which I actually find myself getting passionate about so I make no excuses for the fact that I’m totally getting my geek on here.
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Hughes arguably personifies the notion of the ‘animal poet’, and through the spectrum of nature, he effectively magnifies and dissects the relationship between the animal world and that of humanity and social conventions, as well as the notion of identity via myth.
Perhaps it is only fair to label Hughes an ‘animal poet’, if we are willing to approach his poetry with our mindset firmly rooted in the notion of the animal world as one which is savage, sometimes sadistic and nearly always in some way capable of or prone to violence for survival. This idea is encompassed in a direct parallel of the human species as one which is equally capable of savagery yet essentially lacking in the kind of innocence animals possess naturally through their inability to execute rational thought or respond to conscience. The idea of creating myth out of personifying animals as a crude representation of human folly is integral to Hughes exploitation of animal imagery. He uses animals in various ways to expose the downfalls of humanity and to emphasise the viewpoint that humanity is transcendent and frail compared to the forces of nature. Hughes seems to have a horrified fascination of Darwin’s view of nature and consequently explores the idea of the survival of the fittest and adaptation.
As critics, we might assume Hughes’ motives behind such violent depictions of nature as part of a sort of social commentary, stem, for the most part, from his own personal life experience and the pain and sufferings thereof. Both Hughes’ wives, one being the poet Sylvia Plath, committed suicide while married to Hughes so it is little wonder his poetry demonstrates a rather tortured and bitter attitude towards life and indeed death.
Hughes attempts to capture in writing, experiences which are beyond the restriction of mundane daytime life, borrowing from dreams and the unconsciousness in the small hours of the morning. He creates a link between the dream world and animals and this is reflected in the idea of myth in the collection Crow. Hughes uses this particular animal as a model for the entire collection and in turn creates a myth based on the crow with an emphasis on the violence and immorality of human energy. This myth making is a lineage which harks back to the romantic poetry. Hughes’ throw back to this tradition in Crow is reminiscent of Heaney’s North. Significantly both editions of poetry appeared within a few years of each other. It is easy to draw a parallel between Heaney’s motives for mythmaking with regard to his dilemma over national identity and the conflict surrounding his native Northern Ireland and to Hughes’ own inclination for highlighting the folly of his own society in England.
Hughes thought of crows or birds as symbols for Britain and the people within it. He was trying to undercut some kind of idealistic view of England and present it as inherently destructive. Consequently the crow conducts itself with chillingly anthropoid characteristics, albeit, the sicker traits of human character. This technique seems to be used for the purpose of crudely revealing how depraved human kind can be. Traditionally crows are deemed as pests and flying vermin so it is interesting that Hughes chooses this dark creature as his myth of humanity. It is especially fitting that the crow ‘flying the black flag of himself’ (Crow, ‘Crow Blacker than Ever’, page 62, line 21) acts as an emblem of the myth of the collection as essentially it is chiefly concerned with the blackness of death, decay and sinfulness.
Hughes creates something which stands in contrast to peoples idealistic views about the human spirit, especially religious ones. He works genesis into many of the poems; Adam, Eve and Satan appear throughout in a Miltonic fashion and most significantly the crow is presented as being more powerful than God. Christianity and the symbols of theology are made seem mythological by being run along side the humanisation or personification of the crow.
‘A childish prank’ is set in the Garden of Eden and paints a picture of Jesus as a worm which crow bites ‘into two writhing halves’, (Page 8, line8) paralleling the image of the ‘Jesus Worm’ with the serpent on the tree. Hughes recalls ‘God went on sleeping’. (Line 20) This depiction of God as ineffectual is a repeated theme. Hughes uses the predatory image of the relationship between the crow and the worm to show the energy that Jesus represents. He enters the world and is overmastered and destroyed by reaction and ends up crucified upon a tree at Calvary. The violence which he is subjected to, in its self, is part of the energy of the poem and more significantly is part of the energy of society and the violence which is everywhere.
The crow seems to represent the ‘gangrenous’, (‘Crow Blacker than Ever’, Page 62, line 12) marred, evil side of society; he is Hughes emblem of what is wrong with a Britain which is ‘Blacker than ever’. In ‘Crow Blacker than Ever’, Crow cries, ‘This is my creation’. (Page 62, line 20) He is for the most part sadistic and revels in the infliction of pain upon man and their God- In ‘A childish prank’ Hughes writes, ‘Crow went on laughing’. (Line 20) This is perhaps a reflection of the fact that Hughes did not believe in Christianity but rather advocated Darwinism theory and chooses to explore the evolution of animal nature as fact while depicting religion as myth.
While in ‘Crow Blacker than Ever’, crow does attempt to keep things from falling apart by ‘nailing heaven and earth together’ (line 8), ultimately this creates ‘A horror beyond redemption’ (line 13) and elevates Crow above his human and spiritual counterparts. God is ‘disgusted with man’ (line 1) -which may be a reflection of Hughes’ own) feelings towards humanity- and crow is shown as victorious and ruling in his detachment from the ‘agony’ (Line 16experienced by the other characters in the poem.
‘A Horrible Religious Error’ shows Adam and Eve’s weakness in bowing down to the serpent and declaring ‘Your will is our peace’. (Page 37, line13) Hughes demonstrates through the crow the irony in the fact of the animal species being more innocent in its inability to differentiate between good and bad. The crow does not cave into the will of the serpent or pledge to serve him. His survival instinct kicks in and he beats ‘the hell out of it, and ate it’. (Line 17) Hughes seems to illustrate how human weakness and inclination towards sin had lead to the ruin of the human race. While crow's actions are brutal and unpleasant, they are somehow more honourable than of those who are supposed to be the more intelligent species.
In ‘Crow and the Birds’, Hughes employs contemporary, mechanised words among birds who are acting romantically except for the crude image of the crow. He builds up to the concluding line with romantic descriptions of the various birds- ‘And the swift flicked through the breath of a violet’ (Page 29, line 7)- and delivers a very contrasting and effective end with the description of the crow- ‘spraddled head- down in the beach- garbage, guzzling a dropped ice-cream.’ (Lines 19-20) He invokes a very unromantic view of the modern consumer world that has given up on the notions of morality and consequently is left with a squalid hunger and lust like the crow. It is not a very flattering depiction of contemporary society to say the least.
Considering Hughes is often praised for his poetry about war, ‘Crows Account of the Battle’ is an apt piece for discussion with its brutal images of war and violence. There is a sense of criticism on societies growing complacency towards killing and the numb normality of war, as well as an underlying bitterness towards a God who would let such atrocity occur. The crow is like the God figure watching from above, allowing the bloodshed to occur and then relating his version of events as a means of commenting on the mindlessness and atrocity of war. Critic Daniel Hoffman has remarked “Hughes is the most haunted inheritor, [...] of the sensibility shaped by the appalling slaughter in World War I. His father was gassed in the trenches in that war; growing up in its aftermath, Hughes has come to see the cosmos as a battlefield. His is the world-view of a betrayed Fundamentalist, who, discovering that God has no care for man's fate, understands the universe to be governed not by divine love but by power.”
Hughes describes a battle scene through the eyes of the crow in an infusion of everyday images with the brutal and savage images of war. The depiction of war is chilling in its noise which ‘was as much as the limits of possible noise could take’. (Page15, stanza 1, line 3) The tone of complacency when referencing violent images is symptomatic of Hughes’ interpretation of how society has become too familiar with the horror of war to put an end to it- ‘Blasting the whole world to bits was too like slamming a door’. (Page 16, stanza 3, lines 16-17) There is without doubt an element of inevitability about the poem; Hughes relates how society has resigned itself to atrocity by repeating the sentiments ‘happened too easily’ (stanza 3, line 7)and ‘was going to happen too often in the future’ (line 6) a number of times in stanza three. Perhaps the most significant line of the poem is in stanza two- ‘There was no escape except into death.’ (line 23) This seems to be a key ethos of much of Hughes’ poetry and again re-emphasises the importance of using the crow as the collections protagonist. The black crow is almost like the grim-reaper both witnessing and partaking in sequences of death, destruction and violence in almost every poem. This is an idea Hughes’ appears to be preoccupied with in the majority of his poetry and he undoubtedly finds animal life an appropriate medium for both exploring and expressing such themes.
Another theme repeated throughout crow is the idea that humanity is suffering from the images we see in crow because of the under value of the feminine. Crow is a deeply painful book and is an expression of Hughes’ own agony. It appears to be an attempt on Hughes’ part to identify himself with a culture or society which is unable to identify with the feminine. Hughes is possibly influenced by Robert Graves’ White goddess in which he talks of how Western society undervalue the feminine and disregard the myth and power of the mother. In ‘Revenge Fable’ Hughes implicates science and technology in the hostility of the feminine. He highlights this hostility by juxtaposing it with nature. The poem is about the tree of life and mans impulse to discover the truth behind it by means of ‘numbers and equations and laws’. (Page 63, line 5) Scientific research tears nature apart and we are left with ‘rifles and whisky and bored sleep’. (Line 14) Hughes critiques modernised mechanic warfare and how society has become wrapped up in violence and lack of appreciation for the mother figure through their obsession with technological advancement.
'Fragment of an ancient tablet’ is suggestive of a disgust at women. It is vulgar and quite explicit- ‘Above- the well known lips, delicately downed. Below- beard between thighs.’ (Page 79, lines 1-2) Hughes does not tone things down but instead implies that you have to confront this disgust and see the good in the point in order to get over it. Hughes obviously has a complex view of love due to his personal experience and this is translated in poems such as ‘Crow’s First Lesson’ and ‘Crow and Mama’. In ‘Crows First Lesson’ Hughes presents a bitter depiction of love as the attempt to ‘express’ love brings about destruction and pain. This is a prime example of Hughes using the animal to vocalise his own tortured feelings. In the concluding line ‘Crow flew guiltily off’, (Page 9, line 19) Hughes may be referring to the Crow abandoning the situation like his wives did in their suicides or maybe it is Hughes himself flying off guiltily after his attempts at expressing love have brought about the pain and destruction of those in his life.
In many cases animals and their characteristics are assumed as both metaphors and statements for a wider and more complicated message. His animal poetry is a medium to indirectly vent his opinions on sociological and personal issues in an aptly animalistic manner with regard to violence and the natural order of life, love and death.
Although I do not share Hughes’ atheist views or advocate his somewhat blasphemous and demeaning representations of God and religion, I do however respect and admire the creative techniques, devices and subject matter he employs as a means of expressing his personal interpretation of life and society. Crow is a deeply tortured and aggrieved piece of work. It is the shocking disturbance of the human heartache in Hughes’ fragmented vision that lends realism to myth and prompts the reader to perform a self-examination of their moral convictions. As a reader I was able to empathise with Hughes' pain and found myself lost in the myth of crow and everything that it encompasses.
Awesome.
