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    H Is For Hawk

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    Lenora Lionheart
    This document summarizes and analyzes passages from the memoir "H is for Hawk" by Helen Macdonald. It describes how she takes in a goshawk after her father's death to help cope with her grief. The summary focuses on Macdonald's first encounter with the hawk, where she scrutinizes the birds in boxes and feels dread at the unseen hawk's violent movements and sounds within its dark box. Upon opening the box, she is shocked by the enormous but brilliant and furious hawk being released into the noisy outdoors.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    H Is For Hawk

    Uploaded by

    Lenora Lionheart
    114 views3 pages
    This document summarizes and analyzes passages from the memoir "H is for Hawk" by Helen Macdonald. It describes how she takes in a goshawk after her father's death to help cope with her grief. The summary focuses on Macdonald's first encounter with the hawk, where she scrutinizes the birds in boxes and feels dread at the unseen hawk's violent movements and sounds within its dark box. Upon opening the box, she is shocked by the enormous but brilliant and furious hawk being released into the noisy outdoors.

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    H is for Hawk

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    This document summarizes and analyzes passages from the memoir "H is for Hawk" by Helen Macdonald. It describes how she takes in a goshawk after her father's death to help cope with her grief. The summary focuses on Macdonald's first encounter with the hawk, where she scrutinizes the birds in boxes and feels dread at the unseen hawk's violent movements and sounds within its dark box. Upon opening the box, she is shocked by the enormous but brilliant and furious hawk being released into the noisy outdoors.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    114 views3 pages

    H Is For Hawk

    Uploaded by

    Lenora Lionheart
    This document summarizes and analyzes passages from the memoir "H is for Hawk" by Helen Macdonald. It describes how she takes in a goshawk after her father's death to help cope with her grief. The summary focuses on Macdonald's first encounter with the hawk, where she scrutinizes the birds in boxes and feels dread at the unseen hawk's violent movements and sounds within its dark box. Upon opening the box, she is shocked by the enormous but brilliant and furious hawk being released into the noisy outdoors.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 3

    H is for Hawk is an award-winning memoir or is an autobiography.

    It
    tells the story of Helen Macdonald’s attempt to cope with her violent
    grief after the sudden death of her father. To try and find some
    meaning in her increasingly chaotic and lonely life, she decides to train
    a young goshawk, a beautiful but difficult bird of prey to handle. Her
    father had introduced her to the world of falconry, and she believes it
    will honor his memory.

    The extract ‘H Is for Hawk’ explores the writer’s emotional feelings and
    astonishment at her first encounter with the bird she plans to adopt. It
    opens in media res or the middle of the encounter between Macdonald
    and the man who is selling her the goshawk. This creates excitement
    and instills a sense of action and immediacy. the reference to technical
    jargons ‘ring numbers’, ‘Article 10’, clearly states that hawks are
    covered by the law. These are the yellow forms he pulls out. These
    forms introduce a key theme: the tension between freedom and
    captivity. The falconer, whom, she introduces using the pronoun ‘he’
    even educates the readers about the strict regulations in purchasing
    endangered species.

    The second paragraph begins with a short simple sentence, ‘We noted
    the numbers.’ The asyndeton ‘We stared down the boxes ...carefully
    tied string.’, signals the scrutiny she puts into examining the birds.
    Descriptive and short sentences in the second paragraph bring the
    minute details of how the bird is caged. Listing and visual imageries
    detail the writer’s keen observatory nature and help the readers to
    visualize its habitat.

    The phrases ‘dark interior and small box’ bring the impression that the
    bird is improperly cared for – a long way from its natural home.
    Through the onomatopoeic and italicized word ‘thump’ the writer
    introduces the violent and powerful bird. The metaphor ‘sudden thump
    of feathered shoulders’ extends its arrogance at the presence of
    humans ‘like us’. A terrifying picture of the unseen bird is created
    through the violent phrases ‘a sudden thump, box shook, as if someone
    had punched’. The simile compares the sound to someone punching
    the box. These techniques create a sense of foreboding and dread at
    what is inside the box.

    A series of short sentences in the third paragraph build up the curiosity


    to see the unseen bird and elevates the readers on the verge of
    excitement. Through these sentences, the writer has succeeded in
    paralyzing the emotions of the readers for a short moment. The short,
    fragmented, incomplete sentences ‘Concentration. Infinite caution’
    slow down the sense of time, creating tension. The repeated ‘c’,‘t’,and
    ‘n’ sound set up a slow rhythm like the ticking of a clock.

    The present continuous verb ‘scratching’ shows the bird’s restlessness


    at the ‘fearful sights’. The sentences remain short, but the
    onomatopoeic sound is introduced. ‘Scratching talons, another thump.
    And another. Thump.’ Rule of three and military metaphor point to the
    chaotic nature of the bird as the falconer takes from the box. In
    addition, it also shows the bird’s struggle to break the chains of
    captivity.

    The sentence starts in the simple past tense but opens with the word
    ‘And’, keeping up the momentum. The tense then suddenly changes to
    the present tense, and the writing becomes deliberately confusing, to
    mimic Macdonald’s shock and the shock of the hawk as it is released
    into the daylight. The whole atmosphere is drenched in ‘clattering,
    whirring and twittering’. These auditory imageries or onomatopoeic
    words help the readers to absorb the noisy atmosphere before it is
    taken from the box.

    The repetitive adjective ‘enormous’ paints the impressive physique of


    the bird, thus bringing the writer’s wonderment at its size. The
    juxtaposed term ‘brilliance and fury’ brings the writer’s mixed feelings
    at her first encounter with the hawk, she thinks the bird is brilliant and
    at the same time dangerous too.

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