Ted Hughes “An Otter”
I chose
to really try and analyze this poem for the shallow reason of my favorite
animal being an otter. In reading, I would believe that the otter is purely
symbolic of some other idea like a person, or an exile, “Like a king in hiding.”
(line 17). As with most poems, I have learned to look at the last stanza for a
meaning to the poem. In the big picture, we have this wandering creature that
once belonged to the land of everyone else. Now he is seeking some sort of home
he cannot find, but in the end, he is hunted by the land creatures and his pelt
is tanned and strewn over a chair. I could say this poem is about being a
wanderer as an identity of a person, that once that person finds the land he
has been looking for, he loses himself and becomes “this long pelt over the
back of a chair.” (line 40), or that there is some sort of injustice in an
otter’s life, or that once exiled, this “king” can rule a new world, which is
that of fish. Another notable feature about this poem is its structure.
Frequently the first few words of a sentence is begun on a previous stanza,
while the rest of the thought continues not only to the next line, but the next
stanza. I am curious as to why Hughes chose this odd structural format.
HERE IS SOME INFORMATION I FOUND ON THE WEB:
ReplyDeleteThe poem about the otter is less a description of an otter than an invocation of the spirit of an otter. The otter is depicted as almost the opposite of the hawk who rules the air with a feeling of authority. However, the otter, like the hawk, is a predator. An otter can put an abrupt end to the life of a trout though, from the time of the arrival of man on the scene with his trained dogs, he himself has also become a prey. Symbolically speaking, the otter, “crying without answer for his lost paradise”, is surely, to some extent, an image of the dualism in man. The otter, like man, is neither wholly body nor wholly spirit, neither wholly beast nor wholly angel; and, like man, he too is yearning for his Eden home where death not exist.