The poem “Mooses”, by Ted Hughes, is about two mooses that find themselves ugly and not attractive. But my thesis is, mooses are large mentally challenged animals. I came down to this because of the author’s statements in his poem. The author thinks that the moose is mentally challenged because he states, “And why am I so ugly? ” This shows that he is mentally challenged because, in some cases, looks can show a person’s mental capacity. And in this case, the author thinks that the mooses’ looks reflect upon his mental capacity.
The author also uses onomatopoeia to express how the moose is dumb. The author states, “Where is this world? , he groans. ” This shows that the moose is clueless where he is in this world. The author uses more onomatopoeia to show that the moose is dumb. For example, the author states, “and stares at the mountain/and cries. ” This shows that the moose doesn’t think he’s a majestic animal and he also doesn’t believe in himself. The author also thinks that the moose is a clumsy, careless, and wimpy animal.
Hughes uses alliteration to express how the moose is careless. For example, “drops drip from his droopy lips. ” This shows that he’s careless because the moose doesn’t care if he looks disgusting and he doesn’t have respect to others that are around him. The author uses onomatopoeia to show that the moose is clumsy. In the poem, the author says “Crashes on,/and crashes into a lake. ” This shows that the moose is clumsy because you cannot crash into objects unless you are clumsy.
Also, the author uses alliteration to show that the moose is wimpy. The author says, “dopes of the deep woods. ” Dope means a lazy or weak person, so in other words, the author is trying to say that the moose is wimpy or weak. So, this poem isn’t only about two ugly mooses who are mentally challenged. It’s about what is inside the real minds of the mooses. The mooses think that they’re dumb because people say bad things about them, like what Ted Hughes is doing in this poem.
