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Learn it your way
A short class with Sarah and her students. The other ways are under More.
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If you had to divide 'Pike' into three parts, where would you make the breaks?
First, the description of pike in general, in the first four stanzas.
Then the two stories about pike eating each other, in stanzas five to seven.
And the third part?
The speaker fishing an ancient pond at night, in the last four stanzas.
Good. Notice how the poem moves from daylight facts to night-time fear.
What happened to the three pike in the tank?
They ate each other. Soon there were two, then only one, fat and still grinning.
And the two big pike on the bank?
One had tried to swallow the other and choked. Both died, and the outer one's eye still stared.
What do the stories prove?
That pike show mercy to nobody, not even other pike.
Exactly. Killing is not a choice for them; it is their nature.
What is special about the pond the speaker fished?
It was small but incredibly old, and it outlasted a monastery that has completely disappeared.
Why was he afraid to cast after dark?
Because the pond held enormous ancient pike.
And how does the poem end?
He feels something coming up towards him out of the darkness, watching him, and the poem just stops.
It ends in suspense. We never learn what was there.
description of pike (stanzas 1–4), two anecdotes of pike killing pike (5–7), and night fishing on an ancient pond (8–11).
even the smallest pike are complete predators, with a life shaped entirely by their function.
three pike in a tank eat one another, and two large pike die locked together, one choked on the other.
small but outlasting a vanished monastery, legendary in depth, holding enormous old pike.
the speaker fishes at night in terror and senses something rising towards him from the dark, watching.
from daylight to darkness, from facts to experience, and from observer to the one who is watched.
Summarising the opening accurately: the first stanzas describe pike in general as complete, beautifully marked predators that are killers from birth and lie motionless, watching from among the weeds.
Summarising an anecdote in your own words: three small pike kept in a tank and fed on tiny fish ate one another until only a single, swollen survivor remained.
Summarising the ending: fishing an ancient pond at night, the speaker feels his hair freeze as something seems to come up towards him out of the darkness, watching.
A one-sentence summary for an introduction: in "Pike" Hughes moves from a precise description of a perfect predator, through two stories of pike devouring pike, to a night-time experience of terror at an ancient pond.
Born to kill and striped with gold; three became one, the tale is told; two lay dead, one choked on prey; the pond at night, and something grey.
A boy watches pike in daylight and admires how perfect they are. He keeps three in a tank and finds only one left. He finds two dead on a bank, one stuck in the other's throat. Years later he fishes an ancient pond at night and suddenly understands that the thing he admired is now watching him.
Look, Learn, Then Tremble: look at the pike (stanzas 1–4), learn from the stories (5–7), then tremble at the pond (8–11).
P.I.K.E. - Perfect predators described, Incidents of pike eating pike, Kept in a tank and found on a bank, Eerie night at the ancient pond
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How many stanzas does "Pike" have, and of what length?
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What do the first four stanzas describe?
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What happened to the three pike in the tank?
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What did the two large pike on the bank reveal?
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What was remarkable about the pond?
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How does the poem end?
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A long, fierce freshwater fish that hunts by lying still and striking suddenly at its prey.
A stanza of four lines; "Pike" has eleven.
Very young, small fish, used in the poem as food for the captive pike.
A sturdy freshwater fish of still ponds, which in the poem has outlived a monastery.
A tall wild plant with pink flowers that grows on damp ground near water.
A building where monks live; monks once stocked ponds with fish for food.
A short account of a real or realistic incident, used to illustrate a point.
An animal eating others of its own kind, as the pike do.
A summary, in our own words, of Ted Hughes's "Pike": a close description of pike as perfectly designed killers, two true-sounding stories of pike devouring one another, and the speaker's memory of fishing at night on an ancient, bottomless pond, gripped by fear of what might rise from it.
"Pike", from Hughes's collection Lupercal (1960), is a poem of eleven four-line stanzas that moves in three stages. First the speaker describes pike in general: even the smallest are complete, perfect predators, beautifully marked, born to kill, lying motionless among weeds and lily pads with jaws and teeth that evolution has fixed for ever. Next come two anecdotes: three small pike kept in a tank eat one another until only one survives, and two large pike are found dead on a bank, one choked on the other. Finally the speaker remembers fishing a small but immeasurably old pond, holding pike of enormous size and age, and casting into the dark with his hair seeming to freeze, aware of something coming up towards him from the depths. This lesson summarises each stage in plain prose, since the poem's text is protected by copyright and should be read in your textbook alongside it.
Ted Hughes's poems are still in copyright, so this lesson does not reproduce the text of "Pike". Instead it retells what happens in the poem in our own words, stage by stage. Read it alongside the poem in your textbook. The poem has eleven quatrains (four-line stanzas), no regular rhyme scheme, and a first-person speaker who looks back on his own experiences as an observer and an angler.
The poem opens with a portrait of pike in general. Even a pike only three inches long is a complete, perfect pike, its body striped with green over gold. Pike are killers from the moment they hatch, and they wear what looks like an ancient, malicious grin. Sometimes they dart about near the top of the water where insects hover; sometimes they glide slowly over bright green weed, apparently dazzled by their own magnificence, their outline at once delicate and horrifying, like a small submarine. In their own world they are giants.
In ponds they lie still beneath lily pads in the heat, resting like logs on the dark, rotting leaves of the previous year and watching upwards, or they hang motionless in amber-coloured caves of weed. The speaker then studies the pike's anatomy: hooked jaws that close like a clamp, and teeth that evolution has fixed and will not now alter. The whole life of the fish, he suggests, has been made to serve its function as a weapon. Even at rest, the gills and fins keep working quietly.
The speaker then tells two stories. In the first, he and others kept three small pike in a glass tank among weeds, each only a few inches long, and fed them on tiny fish. Soon there were only two pike in the tank, and then just one, with a swollen belly and the same grin it had worn since birth. The lesson is plain: pike show mercy to no one, not even their own kind.
In the second story, two large pike, each around six pounds and over two feet long, are found lying dead on dry land among the willow-herb beside the water. One had tried to swallow the other and had choked, its victim lodged so far down its throat that it reached beyond the gills. The outer fish's eye still has a hard, iron stare, fixed like the jaws of a vice, though death has dulled and shrunk its surface. The predatory will seems to survive death itself.
The poem ends with a personal memory. The speaker once fished a pond only about fifty yards across, but extraordinarily old: its lilies and its tench had outlived the monastery whose monks had stocked it, a building of which not one stone is still visible. The pond's depth was legendary; it seemed, in the speaker's words, "as deep as England". It held pike so huge and ancient that they hardly moved, and after nightfall the speaker was too frightened to cast.
Yet he did fish there at night, silently, his hair seeming to freeze on his scalp, waiting for any movement, for any eye that might stir in the water. Around him there were faint splashes in the black water and owls calling softly through trees that seemed to float in the dark. In the final lines he senses something let loose by a deeper, dream-like darkness under the night, slowly coming up towards him and watching him. The poem ends on that moment of suspense, with nothing named.
The poem moves from daylight observation to night-time terror, from facts about pike in general to one man's experience, and from what can be seen to what can only be sensed. The speaker begins as a detached observer, becomes a witness to the pike's violence, and ends as a lone angler who feels himself watched by something ancient and unknown. The pike, at first studied like specimens, become a symbol of primal forces lurking beneath the surface of nature, history and the human mind.
Even tiny pike are perfect killers: striped green and gold, grinning from birth, lying motionless under lily pads or among weeds, with jaws and teeth fixed by evolution and a life shaped entirely for killing. Three small pike kept in a tank ate one another until one remained. Two big pike were found dead on a bank, one choked on the other, its eye still staring like a vice. The speaker remembers a small, ancient pond, which outlasted a vanished monastery and held enormous old pike. Fishing it at night, frozen with fear, he felt something coming up towards him from the dark, watching.