TRACTOR
Ted Hughes
Understanding the poem.
1st stanza
1. In the opening sentence of the poem, why do you think
the tractor is ‘an agony to think of’?
2. In line 3, what are ‘its open entrails’? What has
happened to them?
3. What do you imagine from the phrase ‘a headpincering gale’?
4. In line 4, Hughes uses the expression, ‘a spill of molten ice’. ‘Molten’ is normally
used to refer to some hard substance melted by extreme heat, like lava, or steel.
Why do you think the writer has chosen to use it here?
5. In the same line, why is the snow ‘smoking’?
6. In lines 6 and 7, more words for heat and cold are put together. Identify them and
comment on the effect this creates.
7. Look back over the whole stanza of seven lines. Underline all the words to do with
heat and circle all the words to do with cold. What is the poet saying in this stanza
about the tractor?
nd
2 stanza
8. What is suggested about the tractor in line 8, ‘it defies flesh’? Whose flesh is being
written about in this and the next three lines?
9. Underline all the words to do with pain in lines 8-11. What is the writer telling us
here? How does this compare with stanza 1?
10. In line 12 the poem gains a speaker. Who is ‘narrating’ the poem? What is his feeling
for the tractor?
11. Behind the tractor is a small clump of trees (‘Copse’ in line 13), which is personified
by the poet in ‘the copse hisses – capitulates miserably’ which means that it gives up
against the weather. What could the ‘hiss’ be and how might the trees show they are
surrendering?
12. The light is also personified as something ‘fleeing’ and ‘failing’. What does this
suggest about the general atmosphere of the place? (line 14)
13. Why are the starlings described as ‘a dirtier sleetier snow’ in line 15?
14. What do the phrases, ‘blow smokily’ and ‘unendingly’ suggest about the flock of
starlings? Where are they going?
15. What is happening to the tractor, while the trees, the light and the starlings are all
dealing with the snow, in their own ways?
16. In line 19, why do you think Hughes uses the phrase ‘hell of ice’?
3rd stanza
17. Line 20 tells us that the tractor is an old model that had a starting handle, not an
electric starter. What simile is used for the cracking sound it makes as it cranked
round?
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tractor.doc
18. The writer tells us that the battery is alive and uses another simile to explain how it
tries to push the tractor into starting. What is the simile? In what ways is it
appropriate?
19. The narrator of the poem writes about the effect of the cold on his body as he sits in
the cab. In line 24, what is the effect of ‘the seat claims my buttock-bones’?
20. The tractor is compared with a creature that ‘bites with the space-cold of earth,’.
What impression is given by the use of ‘bites’? Why is the earth described as ‘spacecold’?
21. In what way has the tractor joined the earth ‘in one solid lump’? (line 26)
4th stanza
22. In lines 27-28, the narrator sprays the engine with a liquid, similar to WD40, that helps
to start engines. What effect does this have in line 28? Comment on the writer’s use
of personification here.
23. The personification continues with the idea of the tractor laughing at him, ‘it ridicules
me’. What does this, and his reference to the tractor as ‘a trap of iron stupidity’
suggest about the poet’s view of the tractor?
24. In lines 30-32, the narrator keeps cranking the starting handle. His action is
compared to hammering. What is the effect of this comparison?
25. In lines 33-34, the tractor’s engine finally starts. What words does the writer use to
describe this process? Why do you think he chooses them?
th
5 stanza
26. In line 36, Hughes writes of the tractor ‘shuddering itself full of heat’ and ‘seeming to
enlarge slowly’. What is he trying to tell us here?
27. Lines 37-38 are a simile for the tractor’s emergence from the snow and ice. What is it
compared with, and how is this appropriate to other comments he makes about the
tractor?
28. How, in lines 39-42, does Hughes describe the tractor finally moving from its frozen
pile of snow? How does he use personification in these lines and what effect does this
have? Think about the verbs used here; ‘jerks’, ‘lurches’, ‘bursting’ and ‘shouting’.
6th stanza
29. In lines 43-45, the writer talks about the various accessories fitted to the tractor, which
also have to be started by the command levers and gears. Why do you think this is
described as ‘worse iron is waiting’?
30. In lines 43-48, underline all the words to do with heaviness or machine parts; circle all
the words that suggest force or imprisonment. What do you think Hughes is saying in
this stanza?
final 3 stanzas
31. Lines 49-51 form a single short stanza. Why is the single word ‘Fingers’ given a line
on its own? Which words in lines 50-51 suggest pain and which heaviness? What is
the poet saying in stanza 6?
32. Lines 52-53 also form a single short stanza, with the one word, ‘eyes’ on a line of its
own. The writer is using an image of a wind cold enough to act as an anaesthetic
(chloroform). Why is this effective? What is the poet saying in stanza 7?
33. The final stanza is also two lines and is a metaphor. The tractor is compared with a
thoroughbred horse that has been broken in. What image suggests this? What
emotions does the writer give the tractor? Why?
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tractor.doc
TRACTOR
Ted Hughes
Looking at form
There is no regular pattern of metre or rhyme to the poem.
The stanzas have different numbers of lines and the length of
the lines varies from one word to nine. The poem is given
unity by linking ideas from one stanza to another; e.g ‘the
tractor stands frozen’ in stanza one is linked with ‘deepening
into its hell of ice’ in the second and ‘it has joined in one
solid lump’ in the third.
The first two stanzas place the tractor firmly in its environment, with the setting described
in some detail. Stanzas 3 and 4 are concerned with efforts to start the engine until it
finally ‘jabbers’ into ‘happy life’. The remaining stanzas describe how it is bullied and
coaxed into full working order.
Although there is no regular rhyme scheme, the poem contains a large number of sound
patterns, which give it a rhythmic quality. Ted Hughes makes use of alliteration,
assonance, onomatopoeia and half-rhyme to ensure that the poem has flow and
continuity. Here are some examples – see if you can find others for yourself.
Alliteration
Line 14
Line 24
the fleeing, failing light
my buttock-bones, bites
Sometimes this may run over two or more lines.
Line 4
Line 48
Assonance
molten ice, smoking snow
wheels screeched
Onomatopoeia
Line 21
cracks its action like a snapping knuckle
Half rhyme
Lines 17-18 sinking / deepening
Lines 29-30 stupidity / battery
Activities
1.
The poet/narrator/farmer thinks of the tractor as a living beast to be tamed.
Write the farmer’s diary entry for this morning, using as much descriptive detail
as you can from the poem.
2.
‘The tractor’s story’. Imagine the tractor could speak. Write the tractor’s view of
this morning’s events. How do you think it views the farmer? How does it react to
the weather and to the farmer’s efforts to start it? Use the personification ideas in
the poem to help you.
3.
Imagine the tractor as a creature and draw what you think it might look like.
4.
How does Ted Hughes write about extreme weather conditions in his poems?
Compare ‘The Tractor’ with ‘The Warm and the Cold’ and ‘Wind’ to show his
attitude towards the behaviour of people and animals when they are faced with
severe weather.
Copyright © 2001 Teachit
tractor.doc