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The Jaguar. Ted Hughes. Track 2 on The Hawk in the Rain. This poem was included in Ted Hughes' prize-winning, first collection The Hawk in the Rain (1957). In a letter to Ben Sonnerberg...
"The Jaguar" is a 1957 poem by Ted Hughes first published in his collection The Hawk in the Rain. The poem's speaker walks through a zoo in which most of the animals seem bored, tired, and defeated, all their wildness and vivacity smothered by their confinement.
- Summary of The Jaguar
- Themes in The Jaguar
- Structure and Form
- Literary Devices
- Analysis of The Jaguar
- Similar Poems
In the first two stanzas of ‘The Jaguar,’ Hughes speakerdescribes a few of the many depressed animals that make up a zoo. They include parrots shrieking for food, apes, and lethargic lions and tigers. He also makes sure, within these lines, to emphasize how “un-wild” these animals are, suggesting that something more, besides their freedom, has been...
In ‘The Jaguar,’ Hughes explores several interesting themes: freedom, resistance, and captivity. All three of these are linked together in the form of the jaguar and his strength in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. The poet draws the reader’s attention to the jaguar, allowing them to marvel over the animal just as the spectators in the zo...
‘The Jaguar‘ by Ted Hughes is a six-stanza poem that is separated into sets of four lines, known as quatrains. These quatrains do not follow a specific rhyme scheme but there are several full rhymes and half-rhymes. For example, the ends of lines two and three of the first stanza, with “strut” and “nut” are full, or perfect, rhymes. While “straw” a...
In ‘The Jaguar,’ Ted Hughes makes use of several literary devices. These include but are not limited to anaphora, alliteration, and caesura. The first of these, anaphora, appears when the poet uses and reuses the same words at the beginning of multiple lines of verse. For example, “The,” which starts the first two lines of the poem. There are also ...
Stanza One
In the first stanza of ‘The Jaguar,’ the speaker outlines a few animals in a zoo. It’s not until the third line that it is made clear that this is the case, but it’s quite apparent at that point. The speaker takes note of the parrots and how they shriek, seeking out the “stroller with the nut”. Visitors to the zoo are bringing the creatures bits and pieces to eat, and they know well when they’re going to eat. This is one of the first examples of the changed behavior of animals in this environ...
Stanza Two
The last line of the first stanza is enjambed. This means that the second half of the phrase appears in the first line of the second stanza. The speaker adds that these large cats spend their days lying “still as the sun,” and likely in the sun as well. The world of animals in the zoo is so un-animal-like that it seems more like a painting “on a nursery wall” than it does a real collection of living creatures. The other lines in this stanza drive that point home as the boa-constriktor’s coil...
Stanzas Four and Five
The speaker changes the poem in the next lines, focusing on a young visitor to the zoo. This child runs, as everyone does, to a very specific cage. He already knows what he’s going to see there, a jaguar. This large cat is different from the other animals in the zoo. The fire in his heart has not been put out. The cat still has its wild instincts and desires. This might be to do with the period the creatures have been there or perhaps to do with something deeper in this particular animal. The...
Readers who enjoyed ‘The Jaguar’ should also consider reading some of Hughes’s other poems. For example, ‘Crow’s Fall,’ ‘Wind,’ and‘The Thought-Fox’. The first of these is about the legend of the crow and how it became black. The latter, ‘The Thought-Fox,’ is a poem about writing poetry. It uses the fox as a symbol for a generalized idea that’s alw...
- Female
- October 9, 1995
- Poetry Analyst And Editor
Ted Hughes’ “The Jaguar” is a captivating poem that explores the power and majesty of the titular animal. The poem is set in a zoo, where the speaker observes various animals, including apes, parrots, and a boa constrictor. However, it is the jaguar that captures the speaker’s attention and imagination.
The Jaguar, by Ted Hughes | poems, essays, and short stories in Poeticous. Ted Hughes. The Jaguar. The apes yawn and adore their fleas in the sun. The parrots shriek as if they were on fire, or strut. Like cheap tarts to attract the stroller with the nut. Fatigued with indolence, tiger and lion. Lie still as the sun. The boa-constrictor’s coil.
The poem depicts the jaguar as powerful, but in what way? The first line of Ted Hughes’ poem the jaguar is: “The apes yawn and adore their fleas in the sun.”. From the very first three words it is clear that the apes are tired, and the fact that they are in the sun adds to the sleepy air.
The Jaguar, by Ted Hughes | poems, essays, and short stories in Poeticous. Ted Hughes. The Jaguar. The apes yawn and adore their fleas in the sun. The parrots shriek as if they were on fire, or strut. Like cheap tarts to attract the stroller with the nut. Fatigued with indolence, tiger and lion. Lie still as the sun. The boa-constrictor’s coil.
