Pike by Ted Hughes Essay

Envisage the Yin and Yang emblem. The idea behind it is that there is no such thing as purity. You cant have unadulterated evil there is an element in all things of some good, however small. Similarly, you cant have pure goodness there is an element in all things good that is itself bad. We see the idea in great poems like Chinua Achebes Vultures and in our twenty-four hours to day actions as member of a fickle and capricious human race.This is the idea of Pike. It is attempting to demystify debunk a stereotype. Its kind of like a lovemaking poem to what many consider a hideous creature such is Hughess awe and veneration of the creature. Hughes more than anything else is trying to make us acquire the beauty of the pike, its power, its wonder, its awesomeness and its importance, to both him and us.Dont get put off by its size if you break down Hughes Pike into logical sections, then this poem will make perfect sense. The basic shape is an exploration of identity in stanzas 1- 4 personal experience in 5-7 and in stanzas 8-11, a shift in and reassertion of the pikes power.The primary idea behind Pike is pike the beauty of pike, the malevolence of pike, and Hughes essentially tries to communicate how in one simple, a great deal overlooked animal exist two profundities of existence, the good and the bad.There is beauty in how it moves, how it lives, how it is made beauty in its power and sense of threat. The first 4 stanzas basically instal us this paradox and underpinning this is Hughes sense of awe and disbelief. The tone is quiet, appreciative, impersonal as if a connoisseur appreciating and marvelling over the contradictions of such an animal.Stanzas 5-6 shift and give a personal account of Hughes trying to keep them as pets, to no avail, and linking his experience to the gruesome aggressiveness he seems to have witnessed in the wild in stanzas 6-7. These animals are fearsome, programmed to be killers, and intolerant even of each other. Though the im ages are more grim and violent, there is no sense of judgement at surpass its detached and neutral at best, even within its informative tone, there is a sense of admiration for its power, for its solitariness for its authenticity to itself.Stanzas 8-11 suddenly expand outwards, and refurbishment us to a personal experience Hughes fishing in an ancient pond, fishing for pike that he imagines to be as ancient as the monks that created it, as ancient as the idea of England itself. And as he fishes for the pike, we get a sense of reversal the poet, who spoke so convincingly of his expertise, experience and veneration for the animal for so much of this poem, may have narratorial power (after all, it is he who controls the poem the pike is the object of Hughes gaze), but in reality, he possesses none he is nix more than potential prey for the violent fish. The final stanzas see a defined emotional shift to one founded upon a sense of uncertainty, of vulnerability how he is decide dly a target for the predator. However, you get the sense that Hughes wouldnt judge or even begrudge the pike this it is merely doing what it is meant to do, and, Hughes would argue, that is just as it should be.