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Hyena Edwin Morgan

Hyena Edwin Morgan. Background to the poem. Morgan adopts the persona of a hyena Poem describes its environment, characteristics and lifestyle Gives a sense of the animal’s patient, menacing personality as it waits for its next meal Creates a menacing tone. Background -- Hyena Facts.

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Hyena Edwin Morgan

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  1. Hyena Edwin Morgan

  2. Background to the poem • Morgan adopts the persona of a hyena • Poem describes its environment, characteristics and lifestyle • Gives a sense of the animal’s patient, menacing personality as it waits for its next meal • Creates a menacing tone

  3. Background -- Hyena Facts • Nocturnal carnivores, found in Africa and Eurasia • Generally perceived as scavengers • The hyena in this poem is a spotted hyena, the largest species • lives in sub-Saharan Africa. • Spotted hyenas hunt their own prey rather than relying on scavenging alone.

  4. Form and structure • Free verse / Dramatic Monologue • First person • allows hyena to communicate directly with reader (‘you’) • Gives deliberately menacing unsettling tone • Gives us a glimpse of the hyena’s character • No regular metre or rhyme scheme • Five stanzas • each with a specific focus shapes poem

  5. Stanza Structure • Hyena’s habitat • Appearance and physique • Hyena at night • Hyena’s teeth • Hyena’s hunting methods

  6. Themes and main ideas • Theme • The cruelty of nature • Ideas • The Hyena represents death • The hyena’s dramatic monologue is trying to manipulate the reader’s impression of it (the animal) and nature

  7. Stanza 1 ~ Lines1- 4 ‘Kraal’ = village of huts I am waiting for you. I have been travelling all morning through the bush and not eaten. I am lying at the edge of the bush on a dusty path that leads from the burnt-out kraal. I am panting, it is midday, I found no water-hole. Death is at the end for everyone The hyena is extremely hungry and thirsty Line 3 = short line: further emphasising how ravenous the animal is Repetition of ‘bush’ Details of the inhospitable environment • Impressive / sinister that the hyena can live here

  8. Stanza 1 ~ Lines 7 - 9 I am very fierce without food and although my eyes are screwed to slits against the sun you must believe I am prepared to spring. Alliteration – repeated ‘f’ sounds like snarling More alliteration, this time ‘s’ – mirrors the threat offered by the hyena The hyena is confident in its abilities

  9. Stanza 2 ~ Lines 10-13 What do you think of me? I have a rough coat like Africa. I am crafty with dark spots like the bush-tufted plains of Africa. Rhetorical question – challenges the reader Extended simile compares the tufty coat of the hyena to the landscape of Africa • The hyena is an embodiment of Africa • Hyena is connected to the environment

  10. Stanza 2 ~ Lines 14-17 I sprawl as a shaggy bundle of gathered energy like Africa sprawling in its waters. I trot, I lope, I slaver, I am a ranger. I hunch my shoulders. I eat the dead. Simile – physical appearance linked to landscape Simile – explicit (clear) link between animal and continent Word choice – sprawling ‘suggests’ continent lying comfortably like an animal (Personification too!) Waters – Africa in the sea is like the hyena in the grass Repetition of ‘I’ - / vivid verbs – strong visual impression of animal Short, blunt statement – hyena’s idea of itself; sinister and threatening

  11. Stanza 3 ~ Lines 18 - 22 Do you like my song? When the moon pours hard and cold on the veldt  I sing , and I am the slave of darkness . Over the stone walls and the mud walls and the ruined places and the owls, the moonlight falls.   Rhetorical question: toying with reader  Metaphor - image of the coldness of moonlight - veldt = African bush  ‘sing’ and earlier ‘song’: word choice -- the hyena’s laughter and howls  Associated with death / evil; Gothic monsters (Dracula / werewolves etc.)  List of man-made things that have been altered and made uncanny by the night (owls / moonlight)

  12. Stanza 3 ~ Lines 23-25 I sniff a broken drum. I bristle. My pelt is silver.  I howl my song to the moon – up it goes. Would you meet me there in the waste places ? Caesura (breaks in the line) Short statements that build tension  Climax: the hyena invites the reader to imagine themselves meeting it. Again, brings to mind Gothic horror (moon / howling). Terror / physical danger for reader

  13. Stanza 4 ~ Lines 26 - 30 It is said I am a good match for a dead lion . I put my muzzle at his golden flanks, and tear. He is my golden supper , but my tastes are easy.  I have a crowd of fangs, and I use them. Comparison: majestic, regal lion vs lowly, creeping scavenging hyena. Here, the hyena is seen to win in the end!  Repetition of ‘golden’. Word choice connotes wealth / royalty. Ironic, as the lion is being eaten. The hyena is not impressed by his high status meal – would eat any carrion  Metaphor – teeth are numerous and messy

  14. Stanza 4 ~ Lines 31 - 33 Oh and my tongue – do you like me when it comes lolling out over my jaw very long, and I am laughing?  I am not laughing. Grotesque (strange and disturbing) imagery – toying with / taunting the reader  Brief, strong statement – hyena answers its own question : further unsettles the reader

  15. Stanza 4 ~ Lines 34 - 38 But I am not snarling either, only panting in the sun , showing you what I grip carrion  with.  Lessens the threat of earlier lines only to build to a climax on the word ‘carrion’  ‘carrion’ word choice connotes death, decay and indignity. Horror / shock for reader  Frequent, short lines: sense of immediacy

  16. Stanza 5 ~ Lines 39 - 44 I am waiting for the foot to slide, for the heart to seize, for the leaping sinews to go slack , for the fight to the death to be fought to the death,  for a glazing eye and the rumour of blood.  Series of alliterative sibilants (s sounds) emphasise the peril that lies in wait for the hyena’s victims  Repetition within a line – dark humour – the hyena will not participate in the fight, but will benefit whatever the outcome  Repeated pattern of line openings ‘for the’… a list of ways in which the hyena opportunistically obtains a meal at the expense of other animals

  17. Stanza 5 ~ Lines 45 - 46 I am crouching in my dry shadows  till you are ready for me.  The hyena belongs here the shadows are ‘my shadows’  Sense of inevitability (there is no escape) – the hyena will eat every animal if it waits long enough  Direct personal threat to the reader

  18. Stanza ? ~ Lines 47 - 48 My place is to pick you clean and leave your bones  to the wind.  Final couplet: returns to opening idea (I am waiting for you). This is what the hyena is waiting to do. Extended metaphor: the hyena is the embodiment of the death that awaits every living thing. Sinister ending to the poem – gives the reader no consolation (nothing to feel good about)

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