Thought Fox Essay

333 Words2 Pages
Below is a free essay on "Thought Fox" from Anti Essays, your source for free research papers, essays, and term paper examples. How does Hughes use language to express his difficulty in writing? In Ted Hughes’ poem, ‘The Thought-Fox’, he uses the metaphor of a fox in a dark snowy ‘forest’ to describe and allow the reader to understand his difficulty in the thought process of writing a poem. The title itself, ‘The Thought Fox’, is a metaphor for the ideas and inspiration for his poems. By nature, a fox is nocturnal, suggesting that the poet finds his more ideas and inspiration for his writing during the night. Foxes are also known to be cunning and cleverly camouflaged, making them difficult to see and hard get a hold on, just like inspiration and ideas are difficult to grab a hold on. Hughes starts the poem with “I imagine this midnight moment’s forest”. The phrase “midnight moment” shows that the poet is working late into the night (that he is nocturnal like a fox), and the word “moment” makes the opportunity seem very precious and easily passed by, as if there will never be another moment like this. In this phrase, Hughes uses the alliteration of the letter ‘m’, emphasizing the phrase. He uses the “forest” as a metaphor for his mind- it is deep and difficult to get hold of inspiration, which is this case comes in the form of a fox. The next line, “Something else is alive”, shows how Hughes senses a presence, although he is not able to distinguish what this presence is. This line is a metaphor for an idea he senses coming, but can’t define. “Something else is alive/ Beside the clock’s loneliness/And this blank page where my fingers move.” Hughes uses personification, describing the clock as something alive, showing that he is aware of the movement (ticking) of the clock. This helps to build up an image of the situation in the reader’s
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