Ted Hughes poem Hawk Roosting can be interpreted in two very different ways. Firstly, it explores -on a literal level- the hawk celebrating itself and its power and control over nature. Hughes begins the poem by writing ‘I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed’ which comments on where the hawk sits in the food chain; at the top, and also suggests that as well as being the ruler of nature he rules blind.

Further down in stanza 3 and 4 Hughes portrays the Hawk as almost godlike as he includes a link with the idea that god creates and is in control of life and death. ‘I kill where I please because it is all mine’ reveals how the Hawk believes he owns and holds everything, including life and death, in his claws. The Hawk sees himself as omniscient and everything else as its prey. Similarly, the lines ‘It took the whole of creation to produce my foot, my feather; now I hold creation in my foot’ (line12) demonstrate how he was created by nature and now he is in control of it.

Again in stanza 4, we were told that the Hawk has ‘no sophistry in his body’ meaning that all his actions are justified. How it is his nature to be violent and aggressive (portrayed in the line ‘my manners are tearing of heads’) and that there is no animal above him who could challenge him (portrayed in the line ‘no arguments assert my right’), therefore he has the control to do whatever he likes with out any competition.

Finally, the Hawks arrogance is demonstrated mainly in the last stanzas where he states that the sun- the embodiment of nature itself- is behind him and supports his actions.

However there is a metaphorical meaning to the poem, which is the idea that the hawk is a representation of a political figure like a politician or a fascist leader like Hitler. This is suggested by how the image of the hawk sitting on top of the world, controlling everything through the threat