Evil and death. These are what remain after all else has been consumed. At least that’s what the poet Ted Hughes believed, as he indicated in his nihilistic poem, “Theology”. To understand exactly why Hughes espoused this concept, it’s helpful to discuss the context surrounding this work. Ted Hughes was born to an already broken family; his parents, particularly his father, had endured the devastation of World War I, and brought back with them the horrors they witnessed (2593). The pain didn’t end with Hughes’ departure from home, either. Enduring a miserable marriage that concluded with his wife’s death, Hughes wrote “Theology” in 1967, four years after his union came to an abrupt end. “Theology” itself describes the victory of evil over all else, the pain of God, and the satisfaction of Satan with his feast of sin. As Hughes broods about the grand yet hopeless conflict, he employs numerous devices to coerce the reader into brooding with him—between short, dramatic sentences, use of a known anecdote, and dark word choice, Hughes demonstrates that, after all is said and done, evil prevails above good.
Hughes use of the emphatic phrase in this text is really quite profound. This device conveys so much information in a small selection of words. In particular, there are a few lines that contain statements of power, found in stanza two:
“Adam ate the apple.
Eve ate Adam.
The serpent ate Eve”
(2594).
These three lines illustrate a phenomenon of sin and its nature, that as one is devoured by another, evil devours them all in the end. Hughes is very direct here, and his use of a brief phrase indicates a no-nonsense tone of fear and seriousness. Hughes does not avoid the topic of evil’s victory as if it were something to be scorned—he accomplishes his purpose of considering the triumph of evil by uttering somber statements that remove all hope from the ultimate conflict. Yet how is using these phrases more effective than describing the victory of sin in more words of clarity? Hughes sacrifices lucidity of the war in these phrases instead for intense emotional response. What this means is that Hughes decides to connect the reader on an emotional level with the hopelessness of the moral fight, rather than describe it in exhaustive detail; he leaves the further description for the following stanza.
Adam and Eve—possibly the oldest story of humanity that tackles the ultimate battle between right and wrong, temptation and moral resilience. Hughes brilliantly utilizes this parable to explain his theme in brevity. By using a well-known parallel to the great conflict, Hughes allows himself to not explicitly state that his poem deals with the failure of man and evil’s success. Everyone is familiar with that dreadful outcome in Genesis 3. In this way, more words may be focused upon evil itself and its power, rather than the explanation of an already complicated concept. By rephrasing the story and adding an extra section in the form of stanza three, Hughes summarizes this spiritual battle in the following way: evil devours all and fills itself with its feast in the end. Observe this summary through the poem itself:
“No, the serpent did not Seduce Eve to the apple. All that's simply Corruption of the facts.
Adam ate the apple. Eve ate Adam. The serpent ate Eve. This is the dark intestine.
The serpent, meanwhile, Sleeps his meal off in Paradise - Smiling to hear God's querulous calling"
(2594).
In only 8 lines, Hughes describes for us the entire paradoxical, supernatural warfare of right and wrong, while devoting an entire 4-line section exclusively to evil’s eventual gluttonous victory. The brief anecdote allows the reader to focus more upon the ultimate stanza, as it occupies an entire third of the poem and is therefore a major component of Hughes’ writing. Had Hughes spent more time explaining the subjective conflict, attention would have been drawn away from what Hughes believes is the most important side, evil. This is why Hughes includes this allusion—it’s short, conveys much context in a few short words, and frees space for focus upon Hughes’ primary points in stanza three.
“Querulous”. An odd term indeed, one that can best be described as a kind of whining or annoying complaint. Throughout this poem, Hughes includes a vocabulary filled with dismal and dingy words that strike chords out of tune. Taking a few examples, Hughes uses the word “Seduce” in line 2, “Corruption” in line 4, the phrase “dark intestine” in line 8, and many others. But, why does Hughes use such language? It may seem enough to merely incorporate an anecdote, without any external aids to the reader’s imagination. However, Hughes actually includes these words and phrases for quite an intentional purpose—without them realizing it, these words evoke emotion in the reader that lend greatly to the tone of the poem. If Hughes were to write the poem substituting these words with others of lesser potency, the content of the piece would be far weaker, and thus the significance of evil would be diminished in a similar way. Suppose the piece read this way:
“No, the [snake] did not
[Persuade] Eve to eat the apple.
All that’s
A [misconstruing] of the facts.
Adam ate the apple.
Eve ate him.
The [snake] ate her.
This is the [digestion of wrong]
The [snake], meanwhile,
Sleeps [as his meal digests] in Paradise,
[Contented] to hear
God’s [worried concerns]”
No meaning is altered though the words themselves may be. But notice how different still the two iterations are from one another. The former elicits a kind of passion and fear the second does not—though the two are virtually identical in their message. There is an element of strength Hughes imbues into evil with his words here that is not completely tangible; it is almost supernatural like the conflict itself.
Therefore, Hughes creates for us a poem that brings the mind to distant realms of sin and fear. Through poignant statements, a famous moral dilemma, and emphatic word choice, Hughes relays to the reader that all hope is lost; evil has won and good cannot stop its wrath. In his writing, Hughes grants power to this evil as he spins a web of words that ensnares its readers and tempts them—just as Satan did Eve—to believe his dismal message. Thus, it may be said that Hughes successfully implements devices that are instrumental to his purpose of removing the light of righteousness and replacing it with thoughts of sin and a future of digestion in darkness. Let us hope that humanity does not accept this message, however convincing Hughes may be.
Works Cited:
Greenblatt, Stephen, and Meyer Howard. Abrams. The Norton Anthology of English
Literature. Norton & Company, 2013.
Kommentarer