With close reference to up to 40 lines of verse, analyse how Hughes presents animal life.
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The poem Otter is a good example of the way Hughes depicts animal life. His motivation is to present the natural world as powerful and vivid. He does this by writing unromantic and unsentimental poems which present animals as raw and natural. Hughes is a conservationist. He values the natural world especially at a time of growing urbanisation after the Second World War.
Otherness is one of the ways Hughes presents the otter. This is established in the first stanza where the otter is described as ‘neither fish nor beast’. It is being described by what it is not. The use of assonance helps create emphasis and is pleasing to the ear.
The otter is presented as exiled, yearning for a home that no longer exists. The simile ‘like a king in hiding’ expresses this strongly. There are biblical connotations in this image. The connotations of ‘king’ bring up many thoughts of the otter as heroic and powerful. But these are undermined by the verb ‘hiding’ that links the king and to ideas of weakness and defeat. The Otter is presented as an ancient creature that once inhabited England but has become exiled and deposed by humans.
One important way Hughes presents animal life is to identify the animals with one of the four elements. For example the horses and the jaguar are linked to the earth. However the Otter is connected to water. In the opening phrase of the poem Hughes writes of the otter’s ‘Underwater eyes,…’ . This shows how the animal’s eyes are adapted to water and therefore emphasises the otter’s oneness and connectedness to this element. It seems perfectly at home here. [This is similar to the presentation of the pike. Both creatures belong to water. The pond Hughes fishes in is as ‘deep as England’ and Hughes sees the otter as a ‘legend of himself’. There is something elemental and eternal in these creatures.]
The next phrase of the poem develops this connection with water by comparing the otter to
‘an eel’s
oil of water body’.
This is a strong sensuous image that appeals to the sense of touch. Here Hughes focuses on the texture and the colour of the otter. The noun ‘oil’ is a dense fluid and may appear part solid in its gluppiness. The senses are another very important way in which Hughes presents animals. The otter is presented as elusive and hard to identify. This is also emphasised with the use of the colour black and also the reference to the otter’s metaphorically ‘melting’ back into the water in the second stanza. But the comparison to an eel makes the otter strange. Like otters, eels are mysterious creatures. For example they look like snakes but live in the sea.
Perhaps the line that most identifies the otter as linked to water comes in the first stanza where it is described with ‘webbed feet and long ruddering tail’. The premodifying adjective ‘webbed’ and verb ‘ruddering’ clearly link the otter to a water environment. Webbed feet are useful on land and in water. ‘Ruddering’ is a strong and powerful verb that Hughes has made up himself. He has turned a noun into a verb and this makes it stand out and interesting to readers. The strong and repeated consonants ‘r’ and plosive‘d’ help create this strength. The verb is also part of the lexical field of boats and boating. Hughes is using adjectives to really give detail to the portrait he is creating.
The otter is also presented as a victim in relation to the world of humans. In the second stanza Hughes presents the otter surviving ‘hounds and vermin-poles’. This is probably a reference to game keeping. A game keeper is usually a man that manages areas of land for breeding deer or fowl for hunting. Dogs are used to hunt unwanted animals described here as ‘vermin’. The word ‘vermin’ is often associated with pests who are animals that carry disease. By using the word ‘vermin’, readers can associate the otter to the way society generally perceives them – as pests to be destroyed.
The otter also appears out of place in the human world. Although it can ‘gallop’ over fields which presents the otter as well adapted to living on land. It’s described as ‘Walloping up roads’, the verb ‘walloping’ suggests clumsiness and awkwardness on the flat tarmac of a road. The word also reminds us of the word ‘gallops’ used earlier in the poem. It rhymes with the latter word but this is juxtaposed here. The word is now a rather old fashioned word that means hit or strike. It has connotations of violence and therefore perhaps reflects the power and strength of the otter.
Physical strength is another way Hughes presents the otter. At the end of the poem Hughes describes the otter having a ‘Big trout muscle’ and a heart ‘beat thick’ the trout is a British fresh water fish able to withstand the problems of surviving an English winter. The penultimate image of the otter is of an animal that can
‘take stolen hold
On a bitch otter in a field full
Of nervous horses,’
The image here is of a ruthless, instinct driven creature. It’s an unattractive and aggressive picture full of life and strength and fertility. And it takes risks. What helps create this strong picture is the assonance of ‘stolen hold’, ‘otter’ and ‘horse'. This phonetic technique creates a strong harmony and this helps reinforce the image. Secondly the use of alliteration in ‘field full’ also helps generate a powerful picture of the otter.
‘take stolen hold
On a bitch otter in a field full
Of nervous horses,’
The image here is of a ruthless, instinct driven creature. It’s an unattractive and aggressive picture full of life and strength and fertility. And it takes risks. What helps create this strong picture is the assonance of ‘stolen hold’, ‘otter’ and ‘horse'. This phonetic technique creates a strong harmony and this helps reinforce the image. Secondly the use of alliteration in ‘field full’ also helps generate a powerful picture of the otter.
However these vivid images of life are strongly contrasted with the final two line image of ‘reverts to nothing at all,/ To this long pelt over the back of a chair.’ This image presents the otter as dead and transformed into a thing used by humans. The word ‘pelt’ means the fur of the otter. The context has also changed from the wild outdoor setting to a domestic one. In this final image the otter is identified and reduced to its human value. This reminds us of the poem View of a Pig by Hughes. As in this poem Hughes contrasts the living pig full of movement and sound, reducing it to its constituent parts tallow and lard.
But even in this final image of death the otter remains hidden, strange and unknown.
About 988 words excluding quotations
