Thistles Analysis

Against the rubber tongues of cows and the hoeing hands of men

Thistles spike the summer air

And crackle open under a blue-black pressure.



Every one a revengeful burst

Of resurrection, a grasphed fistful

Of splintered weapons and Icelandic frost thrust up



From the underground stain of a decayed Viking.

They are like pale hair and the gutturals of dialects.

Every one manages a plume of blood.



Then they grow grey like men.

Mown down, it is a feud. Their sons appear

Stiff with weapons, fighting back over the same ground.





Submitted by John Paul Hampstead

.: :.

In the “Thistles” Ted Hughes describes the life cycle of the thistles and how difficult it is to get rid of this flower. He compares the tough weed-like plant to generations of warriors, rising again and again against great odds to defeat the best efforts of man to eradicate them from their gardens. One can almost hear Hughes chuckling from the grave about how seriously generations of literary critics have taken his musings on this weed. He uses visual, tactile, and kinesthetic imagery in this poem to directly convey a vivid experience to his readers.
In the first stanza Hughes uses tactile imagery to describe thistles physically being eaten by cows, their needle like thorns pressing “against the rubber tongues” of these gentle animals- in line 1. He further uses kinesthetic imagery of the attack against “the hoeing of hands of men” in line 1. This sets the stage for the rest of the poem establishing clear visual pictures in the readers’ mind of thistles surviving in a world where men and animals are determined to wipe them out. The thistles remain just as determined to live and flight for their existence. The emotion is one of anger a “revengeful burst” – line 4. Hughes also describes how thistles regenerate themselves even after they seem to have been destroyed. This is the continual “resurrection” – line 5, which Hughes describes, which suggests how difficult it is to kill the ubiquitous plant.
Hughes also uses the metaphor of thistles aging like men; they are born, they grow old- “they grow grey” – (line 10) and too weak to fight. Like weakened soldiers they are “Mown down” (in line 11), and die. Like men a new generation of thistles raises to take the place of the old. They too are “Stiff with weapons” –(line 13) and they too flight to take the “the same ground” – (line 12). On a different level you could say that Hughes was also commenting on the folly and futility of war and how this flaw in human nature continues generation after generation.

| Posted on 2009-05-18 | by a guest