H is for Hawk

Grief as hard as it is to express, more so to experience, leads to deterioriation of one’s

mental health and self-destruction, especially when it comes to coping and acceptance.
H Is for Hawk (2014) is British author Helen MacDonald’s award-winning memoir about
her attempts to train a goshawk named Mabel in the wake of her father’s death. It is a
memoir of grief, self-discovery, and the healing power of nature. It is a story of a woman
regaining her humanity through the companionship of a beautiful flying animal.
Following the death of her father, Macdonald retreats to the comfort of the wild; decides
to tame a hawk to relieve herself from sorrow and “lost,” depicting the author’s sufferings
from grief.
While H is for Hawk is a non-fiction text, much of the language in it is descriptive and
lyrical, straying closer to language we may expect to find in a novel instead. This holds
particularly true when Macdonald is writing about Mabel and nature more broadly, “later
that afternoon I take Mabel into the walled garden... Above us is a deep field of fast-
moving cumulus.”
The author’s detailed descriptions of nature frequently to showcase its beauty and power,
“Branches lift in the breeze; leaves shift with a collapsing, papery flicker. The air is thick
with sun and dust and dandelion seeds. There's too much light, too much contrast,”
somehow portrays that in a time in her grieving process, nature and Mabel are all
Macdonald has. They isolate themself and focus on nature instead of anything else in
their broader life. The extract specifically relays the tension-filled scenes she experiences
in meeting the Goshawk she later tames, and the stunned realization that the specie
whom she gets attached to is not really hers.
“Don’t want you going home with the wrong bird.” A foreshadow of the irony that the
cautionary words bring entails suspicion in the mind of the reader, considering that the
author is a very experienced and enthusiastic falconer, as she uses direct speech in the
first line “We’ll check the ring numbers against the Article 10s,” that gives a feeling of
excitement and sense of urgency.
The simple word choices vividly convey the visuals of the boxes where the bird is kept.
The onomatopeia in “ A sudden thump of feathered shoulders and the box shook as if
something had punched it!” creates tension and encourages concern and simultaneously
connoting violence and power. The italicisation of “thump” somehow communicates the
forceful and violent nature of the bird, comparing the sound of the box in simile of a bird
trying to escape and doesn’t like being caged, contributing to a sense of foreboding and
dread to the danger forecasted to the nature of what’s inside the box. The short sentence,
“Like us,” in the last line of this paragraph emphasizes the fact the sight of humans might
scare the hawk.
Succeedingly, the author’s weild of short and series of incomplete sentences delivers a
feeling of pace, tension and potential danger with “Another hinge untied.
Concentration.Infinite caution...” Repeteadly mentioning “another” and “thump” increases
tension and anticipation of her feelings toward seeing the bird with the words “The last
few seconds before a battle.”
Macdonald’s list and description of sounds, “...and amidst a whirring, chaotic clatter of
wings and feet and talons and a high pitched twittering...” attribute to the noisy and chaotic
nature of the bird in jumbled succession to the author’s portrayal of the hawk. Aside from
Helen’s illustration of the hawk, she reveals her feelings at the beginning the third
paragraph, the repetition of the conjunction “and” speeds up the pace, showing a large
number of details the writer notices, implying that she was worried, though
disconcerted,she is quite interested and paid a great amount of attention to the hawk.
Subsequenstly, the repetition of “enormous” conveys the author’s surprise at the size of
the hawk, and the sudden switch to present tense is a direct approach to the reader to
make them feel that the events are happening now. The alliteration in “the hawk’s wings,
bared and beating...” gives the impression of rhythmic movement and sound of the bird’s
wings, while “beating” alludes to one’s heartbeat or a drumbeat—an inkling to rhythm and
fierceness.
The writer’s use of metaphor and list of proper nouns convey the majestic nature of the
hawk, “she is a conjuring trick. A reptile. A fallen angel. A griffon from the pages of an
illuminated bestiary,” clearly displays her attachment to the young hawk that represents
fierceness, outstanding beauty and innocence—a vivid illustration of her admiration to its
magnificence and unbounded courage.
The bird’s jagged feathers are compared to the spikes of a porcupine when the author
uses simile to describe “her feathers raised like a scattered quills of a fretful porcupine,”
signifying that the hawk is fluffed up, tyring to make itself look bigger, noting that
porcupines rain and rattle their quills to defend against an enemy, which drafts to the
reader’s mind that the hawk is scared of the humans and wants to protect itself.
Notably Macdonald’s start with a conjunction in a sentence that spans five lines "but now
it this; she can see everything..." portrays the hawk’s point of view. It depicts how amazing
the bird’s eyesight is and how much it loves freedom. Beginning with “but” and the long
sentence create a contrast between the small places the hawk previously lived in and the
huge world the hawk can see now.
From the strange and magical madness of the hawk's first release to something more
tender and even maternal instinct, reflects the author’s change in writing style when she
describes the calmness of the man handling the hawk in perfect movement, “there was
concern in his face. It was born of care." "All at once, i loved this man and fiercely." The
adverb “fiercely” manifests how fascinated she is to the man’s care for the bird. It is to be
remembered that the writer recently lost her father and is getting the hawk to find comfort
and friendship through her grief.
Learning as a child from her father that tolerance is essential, especially on birds, Helen
realizes her father’s words when she learns that the the bird is not the one meant for her.
“Oh,” this use of a single word emphasises her disappointment and sadness. As they “put
it back and opened the other box...” “...dear God” displays animosity that the writer feels
with the seond and larger hawk, utilizing direct speech, the author imparts the strange
feeling that it somehow does not belong to her. "She came out like a Victorian Melodrama:
a sort of madwoman in the attack," exhibits that the bird is experiencing intense and
frightening emotions.
The metaphor of the madwoman attacking creates a vivid picture in the readers mind of
a vicious female bird who is not only insane but actively wants to hurt others.
The “blank and crazy stare” finally brought the author to her senses, and admittedly with
slow panic, “I didn’t recognise her.” This isn’t my hawk...” “But this isn’t my hawk,” the
constant repetition of the author’s alienation towards the second bird emphasizes her
distant feelings.
After which, Helen’s "crazy barrage of incoherent appeals," wherein the emotive word
barrage is a military term meaning under constant attack, indicates how strongly the writer
appeals to the man for him to swap the birds. She creates reason after reason (a barrage
of reasons) and this shows the reader just how desperate she is and in turn builds
empathy for her with the reader.
"...with wind wrecked hair and exhausted eyes", the alliteration of w and then e
demonstrates to the reader how tired and bedraggled the writer is and how desperately
she is trying to get the other bird which she connected with. The description is engaging
and sympathetic. It also makes her seem a little like the birds. Tired, fearful, ruffled and
not looking her best but also dependant on the man for the answer she needs. Much like
the birds have depended on him for food and water and care. Awkward it may seem, the
fearful behavior reminds the author of herself venuring through dealing with the loss of
her father.
The author’s “pleading...as if she were in a seaside production of Medea," an allusion to
a Greek tragedy seemingly gives an ounce that she is losing control, engenders sympathy
and compassion from the reader.
A cliff hanger ending in “a moment of total silence,” depicts an open end, wherein the
reader cannot anticipate whether the man agrees or not, is an inclination of circular
emotions amid the author’s anguish, notwithstanding, the pain that does not leave
regardless of one’s desire to escape from it.
Grief or pain is constant in everyone’s life. H is for Hawk brings up how lamenting the
process is. H is for hawk resembles life, brimming with its rise and fall, sufferings and
hope.