Themes of Hunting Snake. Poem


-Judith Wright

Hunting snake is the poem written by Judith Wright, an Australian environmentalist, who shares her amazing encounter with a great black snake. The main theme of the poem is nature. Here, the description that the poet gives about “the great black snake” is pretty much similar to the red bellied black snake which was found in the writer’s hometown in New South Wales. In this poem, the persona or the voice is that of the poet herself.

The poem is written in a quatrain, i.e four stanzas altogether and each stanza with four lines each. There is also a definite rhyme scheme of the poem :ABAB but the poet has changed the rhyme scheme in the last stanza making it ABBA to make the stanza different from the rest of the poem. The meter of the poem is iambic tetrameter but there is a slight variance in this meter throughout the poem to create special effects. Also, the accurate use of caesura has made it easy for us to visualize the image.

The poet is an environmentalist and a nature lover, and the first two lines, among the others, helps to prove it. The personification “late season’s grace” makes the season seem like it is a graceful and a pleasant human being. The second line of the poem “under the autumn’s gentlest sky” also suggests that the poet loves the nature and respects it too as she has used the adjective “gentlest” to describe the sky. These first two lines also implies that the day had been pleasant and normal until the poet encountered the “great black snake” after which she was mesmerized by him.

In the very first line, Wright has used a caesura after “we walked” followed by “and froze half through a pace”. The use of the caesura after walked makes us imagine how stunned they were that they froze right in the middle of their walk. The use of the word “pace” hints that the poet was walking in a steady speed... HOW DOES THE POET CREATE MOOD IN THIS POEM? – HUNTING SNAKE

They were walking down under the sun. Enjoying...
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