'A Woman Unconscious' by Ted Hughes |
Poetry |
Russia and America circle each other;
Threats nudge an act that were without doubt
A melting of the mould in the mother,
Stones melting about the root.
The quick of the earth burned out:
The toil of all our ages a loss
With leaf and insect. Yet flitting thought
(Not to be thought ridiculous)
Shies from the world-cancelling black
Of its playing shadow: it has learned
That there's no trusting (trusting to luck)
Dates when the world's due to be burned;
That the future's no calamitous change
But a malingering of now,
Histories, towns, faces that no
Malice or accident much derange.
And though bomb be matched against bomb,
Though all mankind wince out and nothing endure --
Earth gone in an instant flare --
Did a lesser death come
Onto the white hospital bed
Where one, numb beyond her last of sense,
Closed her eyes on the world's evidence
And into pillows sunk her head.
Threats nudge an act that were without doubt
A melting of the mould in the mother,
Stones melting about the root.
The quick of the earth burned out:
The toil of all our ages a loss
With leaf and insect. Yet flitting thought
(Not to be thought ridiculous)
Shies from the world-cancelling black
Of its playing shadow: it has learned
That there's no trusting (trusting to luck)
Dates when the world's due to be burned;
That the future's no calamitous change
But a malingering of now,
Histories, towns, faces that no
Malice or accident much derange.
And though bomb be matched against bomb,
Though all mankind wince out and nothing endure --
Earth gone in an instant flare --
Did a lesser death come
Onto the white hospital bed
Where one, numb beyond her last of sense,
Closed her eyes on the world's evidence
And into pillows sunk her head.
Poem Analysis:
Woman unconscious is a war based poem. The poet is showing the scene of war that is going on, and its adverse effect on society. Hughes has given a vivid picture of war as how everything good is changing into worst destruction. How earth is bursting out due to the weapons of mass destruction used in war. Hughes reveals the war scene through the dying eyes of the thought of coexisting, and a woman lying unconscious on the bed of a hospital. He says that her death is lesser, as compared to the death caused by war. She has permanent wounds of war in her mind that can never be forgotten and was very much concerned about the cruelties and inhumanities of war. The tone of this poem is depressive, enlightening, illuminating and optimistic. The moods in this poem also shift. First the mood is the depressive, as the poem talks about the current world crisis; then it becomes optimistic and illuminating, since the poet talks about future is not a calamitous change and that the peoples response to the situation was an over reaction; finally, the mood turns to enlightening, since he says that a lesser death came, but is actually saying that the cold war doesn't make a death less important. I think that the authors purpose and message in this poem is to show that people were overreacting in that era, and that the cold war wasn't going to cause an apocalypses or make any death lesser. The poet starts the poem by describing the war situation going on between the U.S and the USSR and their tense relationship. Then he mentions the end of the world, mankind, and all our hard work of ages. In the poem he uses the metaphor, "The toil of all our ages a leaf With leaf and insect.", to say this, which means the loss of the world and the people living in it. After this, the poem becomes about a thought of coexisting, which in order to not be thought ridiculous, it doesn't get involved with the thought on everyone's mind, which is the thought of the end of the world which was generated by the Cold War. What the coexisting thought has learned from it, is that you can´t rely on dates when they say the world is "due to be burned." Then it starts talking about the future, and how it has also learned that the future isn't a disastrous change and that the thought of it being that way is a fake illness with which everything has been afflicted with at the moment. It also says that the future is going to be the same faces and towns and no hatred or evil intentions, like the bombarding between the U.S and USSR, will cause insanity or the end of the world. The author in this poem also compares the death of an unconscious woman with the nuclear attacks, and he asks the question: "If bomb be matched against bomb and many things were destroyed, would the death of an unconscious woman who closed her eyes on the world's hostile atmosphere and died peacefully in a hospital bed become less important?" And I think he answered his own question with a no, saying that no death is less important than another.