Why is the poem entitled 'Hawk Roosting'?
Answers
Stanza 1
The first line is pure innocence. Here is the hawk settling down for a night's sleep at roosting time. The position he holds is secure - at the top of the wood, overseeing all. One thing for certain, this hawk has a mind of its own. It can think, like a human.
The second line gets the reader thinking too. That long four syllable word falsifying has repercussions. At this early stage there is no context for this word, which means to mislead, but it points toward comparison with humans, who are prone to misleading one another. This bird is pure raptor, can't be anything else.
Enjambment leads to line three and the repeated hooked just to emphasise that this hawk is physically impressive and sharp. And those hooked features might be called into action if the hawk falls asleep. Subconscious perfection of future hunts and kills.
Stanza 2
This hawk has it all worked out, from tree to earth, his physicality suits. Being high up means that there is an overview, a natural domination. The air's buoyancy (upward force) and warmth are there to be taken advantage of. Even the earth is facing the right way so close inspection comes as a given.
Stanza 3
Focus on the feet again as they close tight around the bark on the tree. Note the first lines of five of the stanzas are complete within themselves. End stopped. This means certainty and gives immediate control.
The theme of mastery continues, this time introducing the idea of the whole of Creation being within the grasp of this extremely dominant figure.
Lines 10 - 12 are a focal point in the poem for they suggest that Creation itself was involved in the making of this hawk and that now, the roles are reversed so to speak. It's the hawk that is holding Creation, becoming the master of all.
The question has to be asked: Is this the Creation of a Creator or the Creation of Evolution, where the fittest only survive?
Analysis of Hawk Roosting - Stanza by Stanza
Stanza 4
The perspective changes as the hawk continues its monologue, which is not a dream as we know it, but a live commentary.
Now the hawk is flying, watching the earth revolve as it makes its way up and up in readiness for a kill. That all important four letter word that first popped up in the opening stanza is here again - kill - I kill - that act which is so common and normal in the predator's world yet is so shocking and hard to handle in the human world.
This is killing with impunity. The hawk has to hunt, it knows no other way and in the poem this fact is expressed with a certain coldness. The language is spare yet full of arrogance and fierceness. Everything belongs to the hawk when it is up in the air and ready to kill; there is no deception, no going back. Heads are torn off. Simple.
Stanza 5
The hawk deals out appropriate deaths, that is the purpose of the unwavering path when it is about to strike 'through the bones', a rather terrifying yet effective phrase.
There are no doubts or questions or debate or opinion one way or the other. Fact is fact; it's the whole thing. Nothing can get in the way of the hawk's instinctive actions. It kills without malice; the bird world's permissions are non-existent; environmental guidelines do not apply.
Stanza 6
All a hawk needs is the sun. Right now the sun is setting. In the mind of the hawk nothing has changed, nothing ever will change. As long as the hawk has an eye, the all-seeing eye, its will to remain the same shall persist.
This last stanza sums up the hawk's attitude to life and death. In one sense it is a pure ego that is speaking - undiluted, pure, true to itself.
Having given the hawk a human voice Ted Hughes brings the raptor into the world of homo sapiens, that most developed of animals, the most sophisticated, able to consciously decide between the moral and the immoral.
In some ways the hawk becomes a mirror - reading this poem does make the reader think about life and death, power, morals, the relationship humans should have or want with, the natural world.
What force compels the hawk? Evolution? A Creator? How does the personification change the way we think about this raptor, master of its own world, top predator?