Relic Answer
This is the sea's achievement; with shells,
Vertebrae, claws, carapaces, skulls.
This asyndeton of that list makes it sound as if the speaker could go on and on
about the creatures that the ocean has devoured. Rather than rounding things out
with an ‘and’ the speaker just stops, as if sensing the impossibility of listing
every single being that was killed by the sea. The poem Relic by Ted Hughes
portrays the destructive nature of the sea which metaphorically represents the
cruelty of natural forces which immediately makes the poem quite fascinating.
The sea is personified as a menacing creature ready to destroy all of the sea’s
life. Through the use of the theme of the circle of life, powerful diction, and
regular structure Hughes has made the poem a memorable one.
Hughes develops the theme of the circle of life, to highlight how the whole
world is built on an infinite cycle of destruction and creation, of death and
rebirth further making the poem a remarkable one. The “jawbone'' that the
speaker finds washed up on the beach seems, to the speaker, to represent one
end of an infinite process. Itself “gnawn bare,” this biting jaw reminds the
speaker that everything that eats will one day be eaten. Everything that lives has
to die someday, this poem suggests, but death also helps to create new life—and
this cycle is the eternal law of nature, furthermore certifying the theme of the
circle of life. In the sea, time “eats its tail” and is endless. The strength of time
in the sea is highlighted as it holds the same power through its endless periods.
Moreover, the time is personified and compared to a serpent chasing its tail. The
chase never ends, which is similar to how the cycle of life in the sea is endless.
Thus, Ted Hughes has successfully used the theme of circle of life to make this
poem a memorable one.
Ted Hughes uses harsh diction to bring light to the insensitivity and ruthlessness
of the sea. The poem opens up with the sea’s cruelty as the creatures thrive and
are tossed by the breakers. The sea creatures were “broken by the breakers”.
Broken and breakers aren't just an instance of polyptoton; they also introduce a
pun. On the surface, the speaker means broken in the sense of injured and
breakers in the sense of waves. The ocean itself, the poem suggests, smashes its
own creatures to bits. This showcases the harsh diction which Hughes has used
to demonstrate the barbarity of the sea. The jawbone, now, is nothing but a
cenotaph. The fish whose jawbone this was, in other words, lived not for
pleasure, but to devour—and its own stray bone is now a monument to the
ceaseless brutality of nature. The word "cenotaph" suggests not just a
monument, but a monument to the victims of war, whose bodies are scattered
and unrecoverable. When the poem describes this jawbone as a "cenotaph,"
then, it suggests that the speaker is seeing it as a symbol. Thereby, adding to the
brutish diction that Hughes chose. The speaker states “In that darkness
camaraderie does not hold.” That rhyme invites readers to linger on this idea for
a moment. Down in the dark of the sea, the speaker insists, there's no such thing
as camaraderie, no friendship. There's only the law of the briny deep: you're
either having lunch or becoming lunch! The speaker's choice of this rather light,
elegant word introduces a note of dark humour here. Thus, by the use of these
excruciating phrases Hughes has made the poem quite enthralling.
Hughes's application of the structure shows the unpredictability of the sea,
further showing how dangerous the sea is. The poem's three stanzas move from
a cinquain (five-line stanza) to a sestet ( six-line stanza), then back to a cinquain
again. This pattern of growth and shrinking mimics precisely what the poem
describes: the endless cycle of birth and death, eating and being eaten, that is the
fate of all animal life. This free verse poem doesn't use any steady metre. But its
measured lines, all roughly the same length, give the speaker's voice a steady,
meditative tone. The poem moves along at a walking pace, just like the speaker
ambling down the beach and reflecting on nature's indifferent brutality. While
there's no consistent rhyme scheme here, irregular flickers of rhyme mark some
of this free verse poem's most pointed insights. The asyndeton list is a list of the
lexical field of bones which suggests something infinite. By refusing to close
this list with an "and," the poem suggests that it's only just begun to describe all
the ruined fragments of dead animals lying strewn around on this beach. The
list, the speaker's asyndeton implies, could go on; the speaker has only stopped
because it's pointless even to try to enumerate every single bit of dead matter on
the shore. The structure has significantly highlighted the capriciousness of the
sea, further manifesting how dangerous the sea is.
After a close analysis of the poem, it is evident that Hughes is successful in
making the poem a memorable one through the use of harsh diction, the theme
of the circle of life, and the structure. These techniques allow him to provide the
readers with an insight into the ruthless nature of the sea.