Page 61 - DENG105_ELECTIVE_ENGLISH_II

Elective English–II

Notes Through deeper within the darkness

Is entering the loneliness;
The tone is changed again to a more faster pace as an animal is introduced, a fox.
Hughes has used a term called euphony in line 9 along with alliteration.
‘Cold, delicately as the dark snow.....’

A melodious sound comes from the words, something I would associate with snowflakes
falling. In the second half of the third stanza, the focus changes quite rapidly, however the
affects are subtle.
‘Two eyes serve a movement, that now
And again now, and now, and now
Sets neat prints in the snow....’
I can see the eyes of the fox now, but I can also see the eyes of the character. The use of
repetition is not just for effect, it is telling us something more. The character is trying to
remember something and that is the reason for the repetition, and he is working out in his
head how it would look on the paper. This is what’s known as lateral thought. A way of
solving problems by apparently illogical methods, a thought within a thought process. This is
where the omniscient narration becomes more clear.

At this point the character knows what is going to happen thanks to the following:
‘Between trees, and warily a lame
Shadow lags by stump and in a hollow
Of a body that is bold to come.’
Hughes uses this term, ‘warily a lame’ as though the animal and the character are unconvinced
and the hollow of the body is the space within his brain. Then again in line 16, enjambment
is used and causes the tone of the piece to change.
Something is happening, something that poses both fear and excitement.
‘Across clearings, an eye,
A widening deepening greenness.....’
Hughes uses select words which rhyme and contain two or three syllables to extend the rhyme
and to create a
threatening tone, which creeps upon the words, ready and uncertain for attack.
‘Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox
It enters the dark hole of the head’

The shot is released. The tension has climaxed and the thought has entered his head with the
violence of an animal. Alliteration features heavily, with the use of the animal’s description;
the sound is quick and instant like the movement of the fox. In the last two lines of this piece,
the ending is controlled and closed, and Hughes draws me back to the beginning two stanzas,
making me re-cap on the subject matter past, of the star, the window and the ticking of the
clock. Once again, I have gone back full circle to the blank page.

‘The window is starless still; the clock ticks....’
The use of caesura for pause is again, deliberate, and I
am reminded of the actions of the animal after the attack,

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