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Unit 5: The Thought Fox by Ted Hughes

5.5 Critical Appreciation Notes

The Fox as a Symbol of Thought

The Thought Fox describes, in an indirect or oblique manner, the process by which a poem gets
written. What a poet needs to write a poem is inspiration. A poet waits for the onrush of an
idea through his brain. And, of course, he also needs solitude (loneliness) and silence around
him. Solitude and silence are, however, only contributory circumstances. They constitute a
favourable environment, while the poem itself comes out of the poet’s head which has been
invaded, as it were, by an idea or thought. The idea or thought takes shape in his head like
a fox entering a dark forest and then coming out of it suddenly. That is why the phrase “The
Thought Fox” has been used as a title for this poem. The fox embodies the thought which a
poet expresses in his poem.
The fox here serves as a symbol.

Vivid Imagery in the Poem

The Thought Fox was one of the outstanding poems in the volume called “The Hawk in the
Rain”. What is remarkable about this poem, apart from its symbolic statement of the process
of poetic composition, is its imagery. We have here a series of images in the poem, from the
first line to the last; and every image is a vivid one. The opening line contains the following
image: “I imagine this midnight moment’s forest.” Here the poet imagines that he is sitting in
a forest at midnight. Then follow the images of the lonely clock, the blank page, and the
feeling that something else is also alive around the poet. There are no stars in the sky; and
then the poet perceives something intruding upon his loneliness or solitude. Next, a fox’s nose
touches a twig and then a leaf. The two eyes of the fox seem to be moving forward. The fox
is leaving clear footprints on the snow in the forest. The imagery continues with the eye of the
fox “brilliantly, concentratedly,” coming about its own business till it enters the dark hole of
the head with “a sudden sharp hot stink of a fox.” The window is starless still; the clock ticks
even now; but the page is no longer blank. The page carries a poem written by its author in
his own handwriting, even though the word “printed” has been used. The word “printed” is
not absolutely inappropriate because ultimately the poem written by its author would get
printed.

A Poem without any Popular Appeal

The Thought Fox has greatly been admired by critics; but it does not have much of an appeal
for the average reader. The poem contains an abstract idea which the poet has tried to concretize.
We, as average readers, cannot understand why a thought should be personified as a fox. To
the popular mind, a fox represents cunning. We have all heard the story of the fox who
cheated a crow of a piece of cheese which the crow held in its beak. The fox employed flattery
to make the crow open its beak so that the piece of cheese might fall from the beak for the fox
to grab it. But in this poem the fox has been elevated to the status of a poetic idea. Nor can
we affirm that this poem is remarkable because of its felicity of word and phrase. The only
remarkable quality of this poem is its imagery.

Comments by Some of the Critics

A critic expresses the view that in Hughes’s world the only way to come to terms with the
animals is not to tame them but to become possessed by them, and that this is what precisely

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