"H is for Hawk" analysis

• Helen Macdonald, born in England in 1970, studied English Literature at Jesus College, Cambridge.
• She worked in falcon conservation and was a Research Fellow at Jesus College from 2004-2007.
• Macdonald has written extensively about the natural world.
• Her memoir, "H is for Hawk," won the Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction in 2014.
• "H is for Hawk" tells the story of Macdonald attempting to cope with grief after her father's death.
• Macdonald decides to train a young goshawk to find meaning in her chaotic life and to honor her father's memory.
• The text also describes the experience of T.H. White and his struggles to tame the bird from his book "The Goshawk".
• The extract depicts Macdonald picking up a young goshawk and her initial reaction to seeing the bird.
• Due to a mix-up, the breeder shows Macdonald the wrong bird, which she does not want.

Analysis of the Text

• The extract begins with dialogue, creating a sense of immediacy.
• The man needs to "check the ring numbers against the Article 10s", introducing the theme of freedom versus captivity.
• The "captive-bred rare bird" needs correct paperwork, highlighting a tension.
• The first paragraph is restrained, contrasting with the poetic language that follows.
• The quiet tension builds as Macdonald and the man look at the boxes.
• The boxes appear flimsy and ordinary.
• There is a sudden, startling sound of a thump within the box, which shakes.
• The man frowns, noting the bird's hood is off, which was intended "to keep the hawk from fearful sights".
• In turn, Macdonald cleverly reverses the expectation to say that "we" are the fearful sights.
• The next paragraph contains literary devices and dramatic imagery.
• Short, fragmentary sentences create tension and slow down the sense of time.
• The phrases "Another hinge untied. Concentration. Infinite caution," create a slow rhythm.
• The term "Daylight irrigating the box" mixes images, emphasizing the experience of Macdonald and the hawk.
• The sound is introduced to create an image of the "last few seconds before a battle."
• The long sentence describes the goshawk leaving the box, mimicking Macdonald's and the hawk's shock.
• Macdonald uses alliteration, such as "chaotic clatter," and onomatopoeia, such as "whirring" and "twittering," to emphasize the shock.
• The phrase "in a strange coincidence of world and deed a great flood of sunlight drenches us" marks the release of the hawk at the perfect time.
• Violent water imagery stresses how overwhelming the sight of the hawk is to Macdonald.
• The sentence ends with the abstract nouns "brilliance" and "fury".
• The next sentence lacks a main verb and describes the appearance of the hawk, using alliteration on the "b" sound with "The hawk's wings, barred and beating".
• A simile describes the feathers like "the scattered quills of a fretful porpentine," which expresses nervousness.
• Between lines 19 and 23, Macdonald stops using verbs to pause and focus on the appearance of the hawk.
• Images are listed to express what she sees, such as, "She is a conjuring trick. A reptile. A fallen angel. A griffon from the pages of an illuminated bestiary".
• These various images explain the unreal-like and threatening presence of the hawk.
• The hawk is like a reptile, fallen angel, mythical griffin
• Macdonald uses nature and water metaphors, like "something bright and distant, like gold falling through water," to capture the terrible beauty.
• The sentence fragment, “a broken marionette of wings, legs and light-splashed feathers", suggests the bird is dominated by man.
• The image of the bird hanging upside down "like a turkey in a butcher's shop" makes us aware how upset Macdonald is by this sight.
• The paragraph imagines what the goshawk feels as she sees many tiny details in the outside world.
• Images such as "point source glitter on the waves, a diving cormorant a hundred yards out; pigment flakes under wax on the lines of parked cars" show how much the bird is noticing.
• The text notes she cannot know exactly what the bird sees but attempts to imagine the hawk's world.
• The paragraph ends with "Everything startling and new-stamped on her entirely astonished brain," comparing the bird's mind to a blank page.
• The next paragraph returns to the past tense, focusing on the calm man "anchoring" the hawk's back against his chest.
• The man says "Let's get that hood back on" in a "tautly" tone, showing concern in his face.
• In lines 35-39, Macdonald's very long sentence imagines the early life of the bird and its relationship with the man.
• The hawk hatched in an incubator and was fed scraps of meat by the man.
• This causes Macdonald to react strongly in the startling sentence, "All at once I loved this man, and fiercely".
• Macdonald looks at the hawk and describes the intensity of the stare and its impact.
• She uses a short verbless sentence, “One, two, three” to show how time is passing with the bird unhooded.
• Macdonald has a shock after checking the paperwork as expressed by, "It was the wrong bird. This was the younger one. The smaller one. This was not my hawk".
• An isolated word then marks Macdonald's understanding of the mistake: "Oh".
• The other hawk is described as "like a Victorian melodrama: a sort of madwoman in the attack," alluding to the novel "Jane Eyre."
• The older bird is "smokier and darker," with "great, awful gouts of sound like a thing in pain."
• Macdonald uses italics three times to heighten tension, such as "This is my hawk" and "This isn't my hawk".
• Macdonald uses reported speech to dramatize her attempts to persuade the man to let her have the younger bird.
• The word "barrage", referring to warfare, is used to describe the "desperate, crazy barrage of incoherent appeals".
• She emphasizes the appearance of a "tall, white-faced women with wind-wrecked hair," referencing Medea from Greek theatre.
• The extract concludes with a cliff-hanger ending: "There was a moment of total silence".