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Relevant Background | Summary | Themes | Tones
Imagery | Sound Effects
Ted Hughes [1930-1998]
Relevant Background
- Ted Hughes was born in West Yorkshire.
- He went to university in Cambridge.
- Hughes was the husband of Silvia Plath, another poet on the course. Plath suffered from depression.
- Ted Hughes lived in the Yorkshire countryside in his early years. There he developed a great bond with the animal kingdom. Animals feature very distinctly in his poetry.
- Hughes seldom writes about animals for their own sakes, but rather to say something about humans.
Summary
In this poem, Ted Hughes creates the atmosphere of a hard winter. He uses images of nature to portray the tough and brutal feeling that a severe winter brings. We know Hughes is referring to a particular month in a severe winter from the word ‘now’ and the phrase ‘this month’. He remarks on what he sees on the winter landscape.
In the first five and a half lines, the poet depicts [describes] inactive or dead scavenger animals. In the remaining two and a half lines, Hughes selects an example of beauty on the January landscape. He checks out the qualities of the frail looking ‘snowdrop’ and reaches a surprising conclusion about its strength.
The poet describes in a few words the way winter has reduced the horizon. He feels the ‘globe’ or world has decreased: ‘shrunk’.
Hughes is also suggesting that many outdoor creatures have died: ‘deaths’.
Hughes then gives an example of an animal in hibernation. He suggests the sleeping field mouse is living with a reduced heart rate: ‘dulled’. He may even be suggesting that the severe winter has stopped the mouse’s heart.
The movement of weasels and crows has been halted or stymied [held up] by the coldness of winter. To Hughes’ eye they are ‘moulded in brass’. He may just mean that they are frozen with the cold and nearly immobile. But it is more likely that Hughes has spotted the bodies of a crow and weasel frozen dead on the frosty ground. The poet shows the bleakness of winter by mentioning the fact that other animals have been killed by the winter cold: ‘the other deaths’. All these dead creatures move in an ‘outer darkness’ as the earth rotates. They no longer scurry or fly as they used to ‘in their right minds’.
Hughes then surprises the reader by what he says about a beautiful but tender plant. The snowdrop, ‘she’, carries out her plans as she wishes: ‘pursues her ends’. Despite the delicateness of the flower, it can withstand winter. The flower, like the stars, is without emotion or pain: ‘brutal’. The stars, in clear skies, are associated with frost during ‘this month’, probably January. The stars are therefore hard. Surprisingly, the fragile flower is as hard.
The poet makes a humorous remark about the weight of the snowdrop’s head. The last line contains a contradiction in terms, a paradox. The snowdrop has a very light blossom, ‘a pale head’, but for two reasons it appears to be ‘heavy’.
The snowdrop’s head must be like tough metal to have shot up through the frost-hardened ground. The flower appears to have a ‘heavy’ head because it droops or hangs down on one side:
'Her pale head heavy as metal’.
There is a hopeful point here. The snowdrop has won its battle against the winter. The snowdrop is more successful than the animals. Hughes may be suggesting that the snowdrop had a special armour, ‘metal’, to protect it during the harsh winter.
It would be interesting to read this poem on a deeper level. Ted Hughes was affected by the depression of his wife, the poet Silvia Plath. Three years after he wrote this poem, she committed suicide.
In the poem, Hughes mentions a mysterious ‘she’. He also mentions that ‘her pale head’ was as ‘heavy as metal’. Why should a reader race to the conclusion that this ‘she’ is the ‘snowdrop’ of the title? Is it not possible that the ‘snowdrop’ of the title is a symbol? Is it a symbol for a fragile, beautiful and single-minded person like Silvia Plath?
If the ‘snowdrop’ stands for Plath, the other animals stand for the torments she suffered in her mind. For Hughes her world is ‘shrunk’ or shrivelled up by her depression. Also, because of her troubles, she lived in a shrunken world that she could not bear.
The creatures in the poem, ‘mouse …weasel and crow’ may stand for the demons or torments that terrify many depressed people. The snowdrop of the title may be a tender image for Ted Hughes’ wife, Silvia Plath. Despite its tenderness, the snowdrop is tough enough to pierce through the hard soil. Just as the snowdrop is ‘brutal’, so too was Silvia. She had an independent mind, in the poet’s words, as ‘she, too, pursues her ends’. He means that she acted as she wanted to and he could not influence her. Why? Because, with ‘her pale head heavy as metal’, she gave in to her negative feelings, ‘not in her right mind’.
Hughes may have written the poem in such a way that the language allows for different levels of meaning. On the face of it, the poem deals with the theme of the death of nature during a severe winter. But he may have written the poem in a way that allows for symbolic understanding.
Themes
The poet portrays the brutal side of winter:
‘Brutal as the stars of this month’.
The poet portrays the death of nature during a severe winter:
‘Weasel and crow, as if moulded in brass,
Move through an outer darkness’.
Ted Hughes expresses the atmosphere of winter:
‘Now is the globe shrunk tight’.
The poet shows that fragile beauty can be very tough and single-minded:
‘She, too, pursues her ends’.
The poet uses symbols from nature to portray a human character:
‘Her pale head heavy as metal’
Tones
Certain words give a vicious tone:
‘… shrunk tight…deaths…brutal … heavy as metal’.
Sometimes the tone is cold:
‘Brutal as the stars of this month’.
Sometimes the tone is compassionate:
‘the mouse's dulled wintering heart.
Sometimes the tone is creepy:
‘Move through an outer darkness’.
Sometimes there is a tone of horror:
‘With the other deaths’.
Sometimes the tone is empty and shows a lack of concern:
‘She, too, pursues her ends’.
Sometimes the tone is mysterious:
‘Move through an outer darkness’.
Imagery
There four images from nature.
‘the mouse …weasel and crow
snowdrop… her pale head’.
There are three images from the universe:
‘globe …an outer darkness…stars’.
There are two metal images:
‘brass…metal’.
There is a dramatic poetic image of the earth as lifeless:
‘the globe shrunk tight’.
There is an exaggerated image comparing the field mouse’s heart to winter chill:
‘the mouse's dulled wintering heart’.
During hibernation, the heartbeat slows down due to winter. Here the poet is using exaggerated expression.
The poet uses a simile, a simple comparison that is not literally true:
‘Weasel and crow, as if moulded in brass’.
Hughes is comparing the frozen stillness of these creatures to brass ornaments.
Sound effects
Alliteration [the repetition of first letters]:
‘wintering…weasel’.
The ‘w’ sound here shows alliteration. This alliteration creates a link between two unpleasant words that emphasises the nastiness of winter.
‘moulded…move’.
The ‘m’ sound here shows alliteration. This alliteration connects two words that are opposite in meaning. The frozen creatures don’t move their limbs or wings, but float dead in the darkness, as if in space.
‘M’ is the first letter six times in the poem.
Note the three ‘h’ sounds in the last line:
‘Her pale head heavy as metal’.
The three repetitions of ‘h’ increase the impact of the word ‘heavy’ and connect it to head.
Consonance [the repetition of a consonant sound]:
Ten ‘n’ sounds help to give this short poem a musical quality.
Assonance [repetition of vowels]:
Note the ‘ou’ sound is used twice in line two and four times between lines two and four:
‘round…mouse…moulded…outer’
Note the deep ‘a’ sound three times in the last line:
‘… pale head heavy …’
Rhyming
There is a light rhyming pattern. Note the ‘t’ at the end of lines one and two, the ‘s’ at the end of lines three and four and the ‘ds’ at the end of lines five and six. Lines seven and eight don’t rhyme. The weakness of the rhyme pattern reflects the weakness of nature in the face of severe weather conditions.
Rhythm
The rhythm is slow, like the way the earth is ‘dulled’. The awkward word order of the first line signals that the rhythm is slow. ‘Is’ is placed before ‘globe’.
The beat slows the voice down. The three ‘h’ sounds in the last line slow it down considerably.
The lines have either three or five beats. Each line ends on a strong beat. This slows the voice down when reading the poem.
The full stop in the fifth line also slows down the pace of this poem.
Try it for yourself. It should be read in a slow deliberate voice. Despite the slow rhythm, the sound effects described above give the poem a musical rhythm.
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