The end seems to me to be foreshadowed in the line about man's 'brain incinerating their [those he has eaten's] outcry'.
I was confused a bit by the round eyes since I took the end to be a description of denial and would have expected closed eyes to go with deaf ears. But on reflection, I think people I take to be in denial do have a way of staring fixedly with widened eyes while being deaf to the subjects they can't face.
It’s hard to read the word ‘incinerating’ in a poem like this without thinking of the literal incineration of the Holocaust. Interestingly, when Hughes is referring to Man, he uses the word ‘Abattoir’ – so it’s not just killing for immediate appeasing of hunger but mass, mechanised killing. He also chooses the word, ‘innocents’, which is different from when he mentioned the ‘victims’ of the other predators. There appears to be a hierarchy. At first the prey is merely ‘insects’. The cat’s is described as ‘incoming death-struggles’. The dog’s sounds more human – “their screeching finales”. By the time we get to Man, the prey is ‘innocents’. This pattern is also repeated in the food chain.Originally Posted by “blp”
Crow can’t stop himself from weeping at those he eats any more than he can stop eating them; – that word ‘trapsrung’ is a good one to suggest the way that instinct sets off the trap in a moment. Man doesn’t seem to weep so much as try to obliterate the cries of those who would cause him to weep. So even though Crow seems human, there are some significant differences. The more I think about this poem, the darker it gets. Perhaps man’s murderous cruelty is the same instinct that exists in all creatures that kill, only at a more chronologically advanced stage of evolution. No wonder Sylvia killed herself - living with a bloke like that.
Is anyone/anything in denial in the poem?
Well, while I was put in mind of the holocaust by 'incinerating' too, what's incinerated is the innocents' outcry. After that, crow is described as 'listening and hearing' weeping as he eats the grubs - the weeping of the grubs, which then becomes crow's weeping. This is said to result in the eyes' roundness and the ears' deafness. I'm not insisting on the denial reading, but why do you think this happens? It seemed to me the deafness was in response to the outcry and the weeping - sounds that couldn't be born and the pain of which couldn't be assuaged by more weeping.
Meanwhile, ever since I read the poem, I've had the walrus and the carpenter's oyster feast at the back of my mind:
'I weep for you," the Walrus said:
'I deeply sympathize.'
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.
I also keep thinking of a line from Shakespeare about, I think, even the smallest beatle feeling the death of one of its fellows as keenly as we feel the death of one of ours. Don't suppose you know what I mean. That's the nearest I can remember.
First of all my question was simply that – a question. I wasn’t asking in order to challenge your reading. I read what you wrote in that last paragraph above and wondered what you had in mind when you said, “being deaf to the subjects they can't face.” This made me wonder if you saw the poem in terms of someone not wanting to face the consequences of his or her own actions.
I’m not sure I understand the distinction here. I know the line isn’t literal, which is why I included that word above. The fact that it is the ‘outcry’ and not the victims themselves that is incinerated makes the act worse. The thing that is actually being burned away to nothing is the impact of the agony of the sufferers, not the actual sufferers or even their agony. By using the word ‘incinerated’, the Holocaust can be suggested while the primary meaning remains intact. Hughes, like most good poets, can make his words do a great deal of work.
Why do I think what happens? I think I need to understand more clearly the way that ‘Thus’ is being used here. Does it relate solely to the story of Crow and his weeping grubs or to the whole pattern of killing as necessity that the poem has outlined? The last four lines seem to serve almost as a comment on the whole evolutionary process.
Part of what makes it less than straightforward is that the two parts aren’t symmetrical – he doesn’t make the eye’s ‘blindness’ balance with the ear’s ‘deafness’. As the issue with which he’s dealing is far less than straightforward, there is no reason why he should make things simpler. Perhaps he’s using the eye primarily for its sensory qualities in enabling predators to secure prey and the ear more in a figurative sense – deafness being a metaphoric rather than a literal deafness. He could have done it the other way – ‘blindness’ is often used to denote a ‘spiritual’ rather than physical lack of sight and a bat's ear is one of the wonders of evolution.
“Weeping he walked and stabbed” suggests the nature of Crow’s dilemma. He simply goes on both weeping and stabbing. This is how Evolution has created us. If we go back to the hierarchy I mentioned, then we can see that the means of killing becomes increasingly violent and on a larger scale. Correspondingly, our awareness of the prey’s suffering increases. The position for Man, therefore, is that he is at a stage of Evolution where he is the most efficient predator, can cause the most widespread pain and suffering and also has the ability to see and feel the torment he causes more vividly than any other creature. So the eyes’ roundness would be emphasising the miraculous aspects of the evolutionary process – the development of this fantastically impressive organ of sight - and the ear’s deafness the only way we can compensate for what our animal instincts make us do.
Do you mean by this that deafness is necessary? Crow has a certain degree of ‘deafness’ in the sense that he might hear the suffering but he continues to cause it. He needs enough deafness to continue to kill. Man’s needs here are more complex. Perhaps he is as unable as Crow to stop killing but his greater awareness makes the subsequent suffering unbearable, so he becomes deaf to it. For me, the horrible suggestion is that this isn’t a moral choice but a way of dealing with instincts we have no way of eradicating.
I’m not sure that the weeping serves any role in assuaging. It’s simply the necessary corollary of killing: “Weeping he walked and stabbed” – that’s life.
I can see why. I’m sure Hughes would have known that poem so why not? It seems relevant.
Nothing comes to mind yet.
My questions were simply questions too. From the start I wasn't sure about the denial reading, though I'm warming to it. In a way, I see the whole poem as a temporary eruption of the truth of daily killing out of its usual denial - an eruption that will subside back into denial equally quickly. The description of carnivorous bodies as containers of death is probably not the one most of us go around perceiving most of the time. To be a bit pedantic, I wouldn't say it's about facing consequences - the consequence of killing for the carnivores described is simply to be able to stay alive. It's more about facing the unpleasantness of this necessary act.
Sure, all good. I'm just positing that one of the jobs being done here is the suggestion that, in destroying the audible distress of the innocents, mankind denies the suffering. The deaf ears at the end seemed to me to be part of the same process.
Sorry if I wasn't clear. I meant, why does the weeping turn to round eyes and deaf ears. To me it seemed that this condition must be what eventually replaced the weeping.
I agree that the 'Thus' is tricky, but I think that, rather as Crow is neither humankind nor an ordinary crow, the 'Thus' can refer both to him and to humankind.
How so?
No, definitely. Anyway, I think by not doing so, specifically in regard to this question of symmetry, he gives us a lot more to chew over.
That's pretty much what I had in mind in talking about denial. I also think there's a suggestion of frozenness about the final description that makes the deaf ears and round eyes tally. The awful irony would be that, in freezing out the truth of our destructive behavior and its necessity for keeping us alive, we become partially dead.
Ah, perhaps we're diverging a little again. My point is that the weeping is not the condition of life, it's a temporary awakening to something we can't bear most of the time. The awareness of all this destruction, or the weeping it engenders perhaps, is too much and we end by freezing it out.
Last edited by blp; 03-21-2006 at 02:28 PM.
I was wondering: who is Crow Tyrannosaurus, if he is not man? Evolution has not created a creature that is higher than man in the food chain, yet Crow is watching over everything even man himself. And, as Unamable said, there is a clear distingtion between man and Crow. Perhaps Crow represents Evolution itself, or God? The phrase "be the Light" kind of reminds me of the Bible.
Here's an interesting article I found while looking for a full text of the poem online (I didn't fancy copying the whole thing out by hand). It provides a bit of background on the Crow poems as a whole but alas no insight into the "round eye / deaf ear" dichotomy, which I must admit has always baffled me.
I nearly posted "Crow's account of St George" btw. Now that really is dark, by anyone's standards.
It's all clear now. Thanks. I should have done a little research of my own before asking questions. So this poem has more to do with religion than Evolution.
Although I don't like the idea that Crow is neither good nor evil, but is responsible for both. This does not distinguish Crow from man, because that is what man is. It is the presence of evil that separates God and man, not the lack of good. Crow should have been chosen as the representitive of man, in this light, and not as someone who observes man.
Furthermore, the analysis on this page doesn't seem to focus on eating. I agree with Unamable that this poem is about the need to eat to survive. The Tyrannosaurus is a famous predator. So maybe Crow only represents this particular need of man, and this poem is strictly about ...well, eating.
Last edited by nguyenngoctue; 03-21-2006 at 06:15 PM.
I think that the word "Tyrannosaurus" in the title may be used in it's literal meaning "great lizard". I contrast this reptilian image to whatever it is that gains the rounded eyes. I see a level of evolution here but I need more time to sift through my ideas.
I enjoyed this poem. I imagined it was similar to 'Crow' the film, but after reading it, I was left thinking more of Darwin than the Devil. Crow has been popularized in his never ending mission to 'stop himself', kind of like a seriously failed chain smoker, or more like a chain murderer. Having read Poe and others, it makes similar chills, however, not the same way. When Men eat Men, I cringe, when Men eat meat, I don't. Thats just how I am.
The film depicts Crow 'decided' between Good and Evil, its not a debate in his head as he goes at it. In this poem he is decided, however it shows me nothing of evil, and instead, Crow's mental struggle with existence. And, we are no different, as we bite on our McDonalds. We cannot face it was once moving, we forget, or we throw up.
I will sway a bit on one part. The only line I saw (correct me here) where he infers some other 'force' is:
What is the light?To stop eating
And try to become the light?'
Crow is to grub, as Tyrannosaurus is to plant-eating dinosaurs. He must eat to survive, and he must feed his young, else why does he exist, he asks himself. To not, would mean to cease to exist, and how did he arrive to be created except by this acceptance of eating that which is less than him.
He is fearful because he knows he is a grub to his larger brother.
It catches them in the air.The swift's body fled past
Pulsating With insects
A cat appears to choke as it swallows, the live food still struggling.The cat gagging on its victim
The dog...
And finally man...
When man is walking, he is seeking food.Even man when he is walking
The brain is blocking out what it cannot handle.His brain incinerating their outcry.
Crow thought 'Alas
Alas ought I
To stop eating
And try to become the light?'
I am asking myself why he has a conscience, because he is doing what he only can, and food eats food, and he is the next food. Crow is gripped with absolute terror, until he eats. I think this is when he finds an actual moment of relief. Those eyes round with hardened fear, and tears make the eyes wide and round, and the ears are deafened - switched off. It conjures up images of soldiers ordered to kill or be killed, or face hanging for desertion, no choice.
And with no choice, its manslaughter - innocent predators?
Art is art.
Crow Tyrannosaurus is not food, neither is man. At least they are not killed to become food of another predator (unless Crow eats man) - he is never a victim. It is the killing that is focused on here. Crow does not fear or weep the fact that "he is grub to his larger brother"; he weeps only the outcry of the innocents that he is stabbing in order to eat.
"It conjures up images of soldiers ordered to kill or be killed, or face hanging for desertion, no choice."
I don't think Crow Tyrannosaurus fears anything. He is a ruthless predator with a conscience, which never prevails over his killing instinct. Many soldiers would choose not to kill. Many people eat plants. Crow's conscience is not man's.
"The swift's body fled past
Pulsating With insects "
- I don't think this means necessarily that the swift catches the insects in the air.
I see I'm late to this discussion. Kudos to all who have contributed; I think everyone has added to the understanding of this poem: the ravenous appetite of animals to survive, the association with man and his moral nature, and the linking between evolution and a spiritual dimension. I think it's all in there. I think one thing we should keep in mind, and which that article suggests, is that the Crow poems are set in a context of a particular collection, and so, while one can read them individually, may cross link with other poems in the collection.An interesting observation, and it is only that because Hughes could not have possibly known at the time, is that birds, we now know as of a only a few years, are the direct descendants of dinosuars. Birds are living dinosuars; crow really is tyrannosaurus! As I re-read during the rest of the week this poem perhaps I can contribute more.
LET THERE BE LIGHT
"Love follows knowledge." – St. Catherine of Siena
My literature blog: http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/
I don’t know if I can explain this but I’ll have a go.
Hughes has set up a series of examples of predation but the hierarchy is significant. Each time we sort of go up a level, both in terms of the food chain position of the predator and in terms of the prey’s capacity to move us. The prey is also ‘evolving’ – the killing becomes increasingly unacceptable. I don’t have any hesitation killing an insect, especially a mosquito. Hughes mentions their ‘anguish’ but what is the anguish of a gnat? Then we have ‘incoming death-struggles’, which is not a pleasant phrase but it keeps the prey abstract. Worse though, is the way the dog’s prey is described. It’s still not human but it is capable of screeching and now has a voice. What does ‘blort’ suggest? A blended blurting out of lots of cries of pain? The killing certainly sounds more brutal each time. Man’s prey is ‘innocents’. The difference now is that the prey is seen in exclusively moral terms (at first, then that word ‘incinerating’ appears and you are reminded of what a phrase like ‘slaughter of the innocents’ actually entails). So, as the evolutionary process runs its course, we reach a stage where there is a moral dimension to killing. Really though, this might be no different from the bird and the insect. The pattern is the same -the killing remains constant; what changes is the nature of the killing and the fact that we now have concepts of right and wrong.
If we take ‘Thus’ to refer to the whole process that has gone before, then those last four lines can sum up the end result of that process. As a result of the predation arms race, the weapons become more efficient and the most efficient weapon of all is man’s sight in both the physical sense and in the sense of what he is capable of ‘seeing’. (Doesn’t most of our perception of the world come via the sense of sight?) The eye’s roundness would suggest a sense of fullness – as if the predatory efficiency of Man is almost the pinnacle of the evolutionary process. Roundness conveys a sense of completion and perfection. The ear becoming deaf is a necessary part of that same evolutionary process. Killing is a part of what sustains us and so we develop a deafness to that fact. We have to –it’s concomitant with the development of our intelligence. That’s what enables us to remain at the pinnacle.
This is not a pleasant thought and one that can be used to justify acceptance of any mass atrocity. Perhaps this is why some critics have pretty much accused Hughes of being a fascist. Interestingly, Sylvia Plath describes Hughes in Daddy as:
“A man in black with a Meinkampf look
And a love of the rack and the screw.”
This is the image I have of him most of the time. I still like a lot of his stuff, though.
How interesting. I've just re-read Daddy and seen what you're talking about - Hughes as the 'model' she makes of her Daddy, to whom she says, 'I do'. I can't believe I never noticed this before.
Still, whatever his personal behaviour, I think it's unfair - I know you're not saying this yourself - to accuse Hughes of making an argument for fascism here. Pointing out the tragic inevitability of some killing doesn't automatically translate into justifying all brutal and murderous oppression.
There's still something a little contradictory in this interpretation of the deafness - though it may be a contradiction that's in the poem. On the one hand, there's a suggestion that with humankind's superior killing ability comes a superior awareness of the victims' suffering. You're saying that the deafness to that suffering is what allows the position of superiority to be maintained. I see it slightly differently - and, so far, I've taken the poem as seeing it differently too - a description of a predicament, humankind's intensely discomfitting duality, superior in that it's aware of its own destructiveness but, mostly, unable to face up to it, hence self deafened, but not really to any practical end at all.
Last edited by blp; 03-22-2006 at 03:24 PM.
I agree with this from BLP.a description of a predicament
However,I don't see how Humankind is being singled out as different in the food chain. Is it right or wrong to eat?
We seem to be focused on certain words/expressions, as giving out clues that we need to unravel. To me it follows a logical sequence, the first word is "Creation".
Incinerate - to destroy, leaving least trace.
Blort - a full stomach exhort, like a gas emission. Some animals never stop eating, and they just puke it up.
Round eyes - have you ever been hyper alert, and then in this state for days - like after a car accident? I see Crow's whole life in this state. The deer, as its been chased for its life by the lion, has very large eyes.
I haven't read 'Daddy', but I already think Ted Hughes has a very "Cold Eye".
I will read it again in 24 hours, I am not seeing something.
Art is art.
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