In Margaret Atwood's, Red Fox, Atwood uses imagery and use of tone to help with the them of hunger in this poem. She uses the extended metaphor of a fox that is usually associated to sly and cunning characteristics to create the tone of paranoia. Foxes are usually very sneaky and steal to get their food in order to survive. So when the speaker sees the fox, she addresses it with a very watchful eye. "but really watching the fox who could care less". Atwood characterizes the fox with humanlike qualities calling it a, "sly trickster" and smart and carefree when it's hungry. It is evident that the speaker is uncomfortable with the fox there because of the paranoid tone and how they keep a watchful eye and analyze it, "She's a lean vixen: I can see the ribs, the sly trickster's eyes, filled with longing and desperation...".
The tone, however, changes in the last three stanzas to a sort of cynical expression because the speaker addresses the problems of hunger and how a human reacts when they are hungry in desperation. Atwood speaks about how hunger is corrupt in society and yet the fox (or man) is still "in it for himself" eventhough "there are mothers squeezing their breasts dry" just to feed their children. Just like a hungry fox, when people endure the horrors of hunger, they become as sly and kiniving just to survive, "we'd all turn theif and rascal" just to get ahead and we "could care less"...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I thik that you make a very good point,hoever, is this poems sole purpose hunger. I think that byusing hunger Atwood is using this basic theme of hunger to highlight human animalism/barbarism. If that makes any sense. I think that its all about how humans are less evolved than we think we are.
i see where you're coming from. But i'd have to slighty agree with J'mag and add my own thoughts. The way i read the poem was that the poem talked about how we as humans look and watch each other and judge each other's actions. I thought that the speaker was the upperclass or those who had food and clothing while the fox represented the lower class or those who didnt have food. Since the poem talked a lot about hunger and having and not having things. Just a thought. But didn't u think that the Fox, using it as a metaphor was pretty koo? lol.
Post a Comment