Take the Man out of Mankind, and what are you left with? If you asked Robinson Jeffers, he would have said that Man is much too full of himself, to the point where he can't even see or appreciate nature and the rest of the world. Jeffers adopted a philosophy that he called Inhumanism. Basically he thought people should get over themselves and should view the world more objectively, with the detachment of, well, a hawk. Sure, that's pretty heady stuff, but you really can feel Jeffers' reverence for life's beauty and vastness in nearly all of his poems, and especially in "Hurt Hawks."
Questions About Man and the Natural World
- In what ways does this poem represent Jeffers' philosophy of Inhumanism and in what ways does it contradict that philosophy?
- How are these two hawks and the speaker's response to them in each stanza different? What qualities do they share?
- Is this hawk meant to reflect human nature? If so, in which ways?
- What's your totem animal and why?
Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.
The speaker should not have interfered with the natural order of things.
The speaker was right to do what he could to put the second hawk out of its misery.