Children's Web magazine...
Entertaining , Educational, Fun,Informative and MORE

In both Ted Hughes’ ‘Skylarks’ and Vicki Feaver’s ‘The Gun’, there is a portrayal of an alteration in nature. In ‘Skylarks’, we are presented an image of a Skylark ascending in the sky “against/ Earth’s centre”. Whilst this is a literal image of the skylark going against gravity, it can also be seen in a metaphorical sense: the growing detachment of humanity from Mother Nature. That this motion of the skylark is described within a semantic field of war and battle (“hunting arrow”, “like a bullet”), Hughes could be suggesting that humanity’s display of violence and our propensity for “supplant[ing] life” is an eerie display of our disconnect with nature. This is reflected in the frequently enjambed and end-stopped lines throughout the poem: the poem reads disjointedly rather than with ease, which could suggest how our existence is becoming further away from its natural state.  Furthermore, Hughes describes this ascension as being “like a warning”. Whilst this may be interpreted as a ‘warning’ to the rest of nature for mankind’s destruction, it could also be viewed that the poem itself is a ‘warning’ to its readers, to make us recognise our ‘ascent’ from nature and, perhaps, to return to our natural state.

            There is a similar transformation in Feaver’s ‘The Gun’, but instead of a disconnect from our own nature, this is one from civility into more sadistic carnal urges. In the opening line, there is a juxtaposition of the civil (the house) and the destructive (the gun) with the latter having an effect on the former (“changes it”). This image of change is rendered ominous by the image of the gun “casting a grey shadow over the green-checked cloth”, which could be Feaver suggesting that carnal instincts for destruction have the effect to overpower the socially constructed civility of our lives. However, it could be seen that Feaver’s poem shares a sentiment much like Hughes in the enjambed line “you trample/fur and feathers”, which could suggest that this carnal urge is one that is based on mankind’s assumption of the apex of a hierarchy in nature rather than our shared commonality with nature. Feaver could also be commenting on the insipidness on everyday civil life. She states that this change “brings a house alive” and that the “King of Death” has a “black mouth spouting golden crocuses”. This ironic display of death producing vitality and life could be Feaver suggesting that there is poignancy in the extent of mundanity of civil life, that it is only through feeding a carnal urge that we are then able to feel ‘alive’. 

Image Credits: The Wildlife Trust