Question

Bring out the parallel suggested between the predatory instincts of the bird and human behaviour.

Answer 1

Ted Hughes has always known to have cited examples of animals or birds or even fishes in his poems to draw a parallelism between the animal world and human behaviour. We, humans, are social animals; however, the animal instinct is still seated within us. Hughes explores this proclivity of humans when the predatory instinct takes over. In the poem, the Hawk hungers for power and authority, similarly humans lust for power and exercise their supremacy. The Hawk's perspective is blinded or limited by its vision and even with humans, their ignorance is their bliss. There is a constant battle, the survival of the fittest. It is jungle raj. The Hawk talks of its inherited power from the roost it resides in. It blathers its pride and self-assertion. The way any other human does. It matters little of whether there is an element of truth in it or not, but whether the Hawk or a human, they proclaim their supremacy over the rest of the world. They believe themselves to be the rulers of the Creation and mock God, thankless beings who weave their own fall.