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The Jaguar
fearsome creatures to prowl the planet, are "fatigued with
SUMMARY indolence"—that is, they're so tired/inactive that they're sick of
being tired/inactive.
The apes look bored as they inspect their fleas in the sunshine.
The parrots, meanwhile, scream as though they've been set Captivity, the poem thus implies, saps creatures of their joy,
alight—either that, or they parade like prostitutes hoping their vitality, their very essences; these apes, parrots, tigers,
passers-by will throw them a snack. Bored of being bored, lions, and snakes don’t fly or pounce or slither, but instead
tigers and lions lie as stationary as the sun itself. “yawn,” “shriek,” “strut,” and “Lie still.” Confining the animals to
cages has clearly deprived them of their power and presence.
A coiled-up snake looks like a fossil. All the cages seem
So tame and harmless have they become, the speaker says
deserted, or they carry the stench of sleeping animals from the
dismissively, that they might as well be found painted on the
straw-laden floor. The scene is so harmless, it might as well be
walls of a nursery (a British term that might suggest either a
painted on the walls of a preschool.
preschool or a children's playroom).
But whoever decides to rush past all of these boring sights will
But there is one creature at the zoo who retains his true animal
soon come upon a cage in front of which stands a big group of
nature: the jaguar. Like a visionary who refuses to let "his cell"
people who seem hypnotized or like dreaming children. The
limit his dreaming, the jaguar acts as if he is in the wild because,
crowd watches a jaguar furiously rushing about, his bright eyes
in one sense, he is the wild. His powerful "stride" embodies his
piercing through his dark cage, like the lit end of a short,
powerful fuse. refusal to be cowed by his confinement. And this, in turn, grants
him a powerful, "mesmerizing" aura that zoo visitors can't seem
The jaguar isn't bored. His eyes are happy to be blinded by such to look away from. The whole world seems to be under his
fiery rage, and his ears are deafened by the pulse of blood in his command, in fact, the horizon "com[ing]" to meet him if he is
brain. He jumps from bar to bar, but he acts as if he's not in a physically unable to walk towards them (as he might in the
cage at all. wild). The poem thus characterizes the jaguar as something
Instead, he's like a mystic locked in a small room who utterly primal and untamable, not just an animal but a force of
nevertheless remains free through the power of the mind. The nature.
jaguar's long steps convey the freedom of being in the wild. The Taken at face value, the jaguar's uncompromising power and
planet itself seems to spin under his strong steps, the new days majesty might suggest that humanity can never truly dominate
rising to meet him. the natural world. And the speaker might also be
metaphorically celebrating those kinds of people who refuse to
let their true natures, their sense of wildness and freedom, ever
THEMES be tamed.
But it’s also worth noting that the jaguar here is male and that
CAPTIVITY VS. FREEDOM the speaker implicitly scoffs at animals’ failure to exhibit traits
Ted Hughes’s "The Jaguar" explores the relationship linked with stereotypical masculinity: the tigers are lying about
between captivity and freedom. Set at a zoo, the instead of hunting, for example, and the birds “strut” like
poem describes the animals as looking bored, tired, and utterly “cheap” sex workers—something the speaker clearly finds
defeated by their imprisonment. The one exception is a pathetic and distasteful. The speaker also seems to bristle at
ferocious jaguar, whose refusal to recognize his "cage" makes the thought of children, coolly dismissing the whole scene as fit
him a mesmerizing, dominant presence. Captivity and for a “nursery.” As such, the poem might subtly suggest that
confinement, the poem ultimately suggests, are suffocating and captivity (perhaps a metaphor for domestic life) threatens to
draining, and the speaker thus celebrates those who refuse to sap men specifically of their virility and power.
let their wild natures be tamed. In any case, the speaker clearly finds confinement draining and
The zoo the speaker walks through is a dull, dismal place that degrading—and encourages resistance.
reflects an overly sanitized and controlled version of the
natural world. Apes sit around bored, picking at their fleas, Where this theme appears in the poem:
while boa constrictors lie so still that they might as well be
• Lines 1-20
"fossil[s]." Parrots shriek as though desperate for escape or
"strut" around the cage in the hope of persuading a visitor to
throw them a treat. Even lions and tigers, two of the most

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THE POWER OF THE IMAGINATION The speaker moves on to the parrots next, which, while more
"The Jaguar," like many of Ted Hughes's animal active, aren't any more impressive than those apathetic apes.
poems, doesn’t have to be read literally. This animal, The speaker uses two similes to hammer home the birds'
in addition to representing an untameable force of nature, unhappiness:
might also symbolize the power of the human imagination. In
this reading of the poem, the jaguar's boldness and ability to • They either "shriek" like they're on "fire," suggesting
that their cries are grating and reflect the birds'
dominate his surroundings speaks to the potential of the
sheer terror (perhaps at the fact of being caged);
human mind to overcome its own boundaries and restraints.
• Or they "strut" like "cheap tarts" (meaning
The poem might suggest that the mind, like this fierce animal,
promiscuous women/sex workers) in order to get
can never be contained.
nuts from the crowd.
The jaguar's pride and inner strength are unmatched by the
other animals at this zoo. The way the jaguar dominates his Either way, they're not doing what birds are made to do: fly.
environment denies the cage its very purpose: to capture and Instead, they've been reduced to "cheap" entertainment. The
contain, subdue and tame. The jaguar's body may be trapped, mention of a "stroller" makes the scene all the more dismal and
but his inner nature can't be defeated. He roams his cage, his degrading in the speaker's mind: these wild animals are mere
eyes "drill[ing]" through the "prison darkness." He jumps amusements for people wandering idly past. Notice, too, how
around behind his bars, "mesmerizing" the on-lookers with his the poem's flashy, sneering consonance evokes the speaker's
refusal to be beaten down by this prison. distaste for that "strutting" about, with the mixture of crisp /t/
The speaker thus compares the jaguar to a "visionary" in "his and hissing /s/ sounds in "Parrots
ts," "st
strutt," "ttarts
ts to att
ttractt,"
cell." A visionary is someone filled with wisdom, original ideas, "st
stroller," and "nutt."
thoughts about the future, and so forth. A visionary imagination Also pay attention to the anaphor
anaphoraa and parallelism of lines 1
doesn't require physical freedom because it's imagination, and 2, whose opening phrases follow the same grammatical
something that exists only within the mind. Just as the world structure:
seems to bow to the jaguar, the poem suggests that the human
mind can conjure inner worlds unfettered by outside influence. The apes ya
yawn
wn and adore their fleas in the sun.
The poem seems to marvel at the fact that this is possible, The parrots shriek as if they were on fire, or strut
portraying the human mind as something primal, strong, and,
above all, free. This anaphora suggests the monotony of life at the zoo.

Where this theme appears in the poem:

LINES 4-6
Fatigued with indolence, ...
• Lines 9-20
... Is a fossil.
The speaker moves from apes and parrots to lions and
tigers—two of the most fearsome creatures in the world and,
LINE-BY
LINE-BY-LINE
-LINE ANAL
ANALYSIS
YSIS one assumes, two of the zoo's major attractions. These animals
are known for their power, strength, and killer instincts.
LINES 1-3
And yet, at this zoo, they're "Fatigued with indolence." That is,
The apes yawn ... they are tired not from hunting, but from all the lying around
... with the nut. they do! Their inability to simply be wild lions and tigers, the
Given the poem's title and opening lines, readers can quickly speaker implies, has drained them of their vitality.
gather that the speaker is at a zoo. At this zoo, the speaker The enjambment of line 4 then works like a subtle joke:
comes across "apes" who "yawn and adore their fleas in the
sun." In other words, these magnificent creatures—and
Fatigued with indolence, tiger and lion
humankind's closest animal relative—seem totally bored as
Lie still as the sun. [...]
they leisurely groom each other in the sunshine.
They're so bored, in fact, that they "adore," or as in worship/pay By breaking the line off in the middle of a clause, enjambment
close attention to, their own fleas, which apparently offer their creates a sense of anticipation; readers expect some sort of
main form of entertainment in captivity. And right away, the movement and activity (like a roar, perhaps), which then doesn't
poem's sounds evoke this dull atmosphere: notice how the long, happen. The tigers and lions just lay around, caught under the
drawn-out sounds of "yawn" and "adore," for example, and the same spell of fatigue as the apes.
clear end-stop that closes the line with a firm pause.
The full-stop caesur
caesuraa after "sun" also brings the line to a sudden

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halt, mirroring the big cats' inertia. And through a simile
simile, the For those who make it past the apes, parrots, seemingly empty
speaker compares these animals to the "stillness of the sun" (an cages, and so on, the speaker says that an exciting sight awaits.
object that only appears to move in the sky because the Earth Notice how, in lines 10 and 11, the speaker describes the
orbits around it). crowd before naming the jaguar, further building anticipation
The speaker then encounters a boa constrictor, another of and excitement:
nature's incredible creatures. But this snake, too, is utterly
drained by its captivity. In fact, the speaker compares it At a cage where the crowd stands, stares,
metaphorically to a "fossil"—something that has been dead and mesmerized,
petrified, turned to stone, for a very long time! As a child at a dream, [...]
The poem then uses another full-stop caesura, again bringing
The jaguar is like a hypnotist who has the entire crowd under
the poem to halt right in the middle of a line and evoking the
his spell. The asyndeton here adds a sense of smoothness of
dreary, lazy atmosphere of the zoon—a place, it seems, that
the language that suggests the crowd's total concentration as
takes all the wildness out of the wild.
they look on. The crowd is like "a child at a dream," the speaker
LINES 6-8 says—a simile that conveys how the image of the jaguar evokes
in the crowd a sense of pure awe and wonder.
Cage after cage ...
... a nursery wall. The jaguar himself is "hurrying enraged" through the "prison
darkness" of his cage, the speaker continues. That is, while the
After the full-stop caesur
caesuraa in line 6 ("Is a fossil."), the speaker
other animals have apparently gotten used to their dull
transitions from talking about specific animals to describing the
environment, the jaguar remains furious and ferocious. While the
zoo itself. And the picture the speaker paints isn't a very
other creatures act as if they have all the time in the world, the
exciting one.
jaguar acts with impulse and urgency, as though he has
"Cage
Cage after cage seems empty," the speaker says, the diacope of somewhere he needs to be. In short, he retains his wildness.
"cage" emphasizing just how utterly devoid of life this place
The poem uses a metaphor to capture the jaguar's intimidating,
seems. Some of the cages carry the stench of animals sleeping
mysterious presence. His eyes are "drills" boring a hole through
on their beds of "straw," but there's nothing to see. The hissing,
the darkness of his cage—and, perhaps, through the souls of
disapproving sibilance of "sstinkss" and "ssleeperss," meanwhile,
those people looking on. The rest of the jaguar's body seems to
suggests the speaker's disgust.
chase after his own eyes, which lead the way and glow like the
In fact, the speaker continues, the zoo is so dull and tame that it lit end of "a short fierce fuse." This phrase might also refer to
might as well be a picture on the wall of a "nursery" (a British the jaguar's whole body; either way, it's as though he might
word for a preschool or children's playroom). In other words, explode into violence at any moment.
everything thing seems so very placid and tame that's
The clipped, monosyllabic words of "short fierce fuse" sound
appropriate for very small children. This recalls the speaker's
sharp and angry, while the mixture of the sibilance and
mention of strollers back in the opening stanza, and it
alliter
alliteration
ation subtly evokes the hiss of a fuse quickly burning
reiterates the idea that this place has drained something
down: "shshort fiercce fuse."
essential from its wildlife: wildness. Thus, despite housing
magnificent predators, the zoo, so far, contains no sense of Finally, note how this section of the poem—from line 9's "But"
danger or thrills. It's a sanitized, tamed, boring version of to line 13's "fuse"—is one long sentence filled with enjambment
enjambment.
nature. Whereas the poem's first two stanzas were heavily end-
stopped (and moved slowly as a result), the poem here moves
Readers, by now, might be anticipating the arrival of the poem's
swiftly down the page in a way that mirrors the jaguar's own
title creature. All of this is a set-up, in a way, delaying the
sudden movements.
appearance of the jaguar so as to make the animal seem all the
more majestic, powerful, and mysterious. LINES 13-15
LINES 9-13 Not in boredom ...
... the ear —
But who runs ...
... short fierce fuse. The jaguar, unlike the other animals, isn't pacing around his
cage because he's bored. Instead, he seems to the speaker to be
The third stanza marks an important shift in the poem, as it
driven by something totally primal and untamed. His eyes are
begins with a small but all-important word: "But." This signals
burning bright with intensity, while the blood pounds so loudly
that the preamble is done; something is about to arrive that
through his brain that it deafens his own ears. These metaphors
differs from the bored animals listed in stanzas 1 and 2. In
mean that he sees nothing by his own fearsome instincts, can't
other words, this is the jaguar's big reveal!

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hear anything other than the blood pulsing through his veins. In Likewise, the bars of the jaguar's cage can't confine
other words, he is driven entirely by something ferocious, wild, its wild nature.
and instinctual.
The sounds of these lines make the jaguar's ferocity all the This comparison adds a new layer to the poem, suggesting that
more striking for the reader. Note the booming alliter
alliteration
ation of the jaguar here is actually more than just a jaguar. Instead,
/b/ sounds that ring out in this description, plus the insistent readers might get the sense that this fierce animal is meant to
assonance of long /i/ and /ay/ sounds: symbolize the power of the mind and/or human imagination to
resist imprisonment and captivity.
The eye satisfie
ied to be bliind in fiire, LINES 18-20
By the ba
bang of blood in the braiain deaf the ear —
His stride is ...
... the horizons come.
The sounds of the words themselves are like an exciting, and
perhaps frightening, pulse in the reader's ear. The poem concludes with three metaphors that convey the
majesty and freedom of the jaguar. All three capture the way
Notice, too how asyndeton between these two lines also
that the jaguar, despite being in a cage, remains the master of
evokes the way the jaguar moves with instinct and immediacy,
his domain.
unlike the other animals at the zoo. The jaguar retains his
wildness, stubbornly refusing to be beaten by his confinement. First, the speaker says, "His stride is wildernesses of freedom."
Each step or leap the jaguar takes, in other words, is freedom
LINES 16-17 itself. His very movements embody what it means to be wild
He spins from ... and free.
... visionary his cell: Lines 19 and 20 expand on this idea. The jaguar doesn't just
The speaker continues to describe the jaguar's powerful make the cage his dominion; the whole world "rolls under the
movements, now saying that he "spins from the bars." This long thrust of his heel." Instead of the jaguar moving across the
acrobatic spinning clearly contrasts with the sleepy verbs that earth, readers can imagine the earth rolling like a ball beneath
described the apes, tigers, and lions. the jaguar's powerful steps. This image suggests that the
The bars here refer to the bars of the animal's cage, which he animal possesses a kind of power over the world even as it tries
gracefully turns away from. But though it seems to offer some to keep him captive.
acknowledgment of his confinement—he presumably "spins The next line reiterates that idea, again saying that the world
from the bars" because he physically can go no further—the comes to the jaguar rather than the other way around:
speaker insists that "there's no cage to him." There may
physically be "bars" in his way, but, the speaker says, his wild Over the cage floor the horizons come.
nature remains untamed and uncontrolled. And notice how the
enjambment between full stanzas here conveys freedom and Horizons—those images of the sun rising and setting in the
movement: distance—are created by the planet's rotation. Again, then, the
speaker invites readers to envision the world itself rotating
He spins from the bars, but there’s no cage to him beneath the jaguar's feet. He doesn't need to walk towards the
More than to the visionary his cell: horizon; it will roll towards him.
Note how these lines are basically saying the same thing, but
The speaker makes an analogy here, comparing the jaguar's the order of their ideas is reversed. The first line moves from
freedom to that of a "visionary in his cell": the world as a whole to the ground beneath the jaguar's feet,
while the second line moves from the ground beneath the
• Readers can think of a visionary as someone who jaguar's feet to the world as a whole:
sees beyond the limits of their world; someone who
is filled with wisdom, original ideas about the future, The world rolls under the long thrust of his heel,
and, above all, imagination. Over the cage floor the horizons come.
• "Cell," meanwhile, refers to the small room occupied
either by a prisoner or a member of a religious This device, known as chiasmus
chiasmus, has a kind of lurching,
community like a monk or a nun. gravitational effect, almost like the tides going in and out.
• An imprisoned visionary can find freedom within
Structurally, the lines surround the jaguar with the world. This
their own mind (just as monks and nuns' connection
makes the jaguar seem all the more powerful, as though the
to God isn't hampered by their tiny quarters).
words themselves are being drawn towards or revolve around
Physical boundaries can't confine the imagination.

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him (just as the crowds of people are drawn to his cage). making it resound in the readers' ears as well.
Taking the jaguar as a symbol
symbol, this final image speaks once again
to the idea that no physical boundaries can contain the human Where Alliter
Alliteration
ation appears in the poem:
mind. That's because, through the imagination, people can • Line 2: “strut”
bring the world to them. • Line 3: “tarts,” “stroller”
• Line 5: “still,” “sun,” “constrictor’s coil”
• Line 6: “Cage,” “cage,” “seems”
SYMBOLS • Line 7: “Stinks,” “sleepers,” “straw”
• Line 9: “runs,” “rest,” “arrives”
THE JAGUAR • Line 10: “cage,” “crowd,” “stands,” “stares”
• Line 12: “darkness,” “drills”
The poem's jaguar is a symbol of primal, instinctive
• Line 13: “fierce fuse,” “boredom”
energies and also of the imagination.
• Line 14: “be blind”
The jaguar might be trapped in a cage, but he doesn't seem to • Line 15: “By,” “bang,” “blood,” “brain”
know it: he has a "visionary" impulse, a kind of imaginative • Line 20: “cage,” “come”
understanding of the world, that allows him to remain free. He
thinks outside the box (literally) and thus symbolizes that part ANTHROPOMORPHISM
of the human psyche that is able to do the same.
The animals in "The Jaguar" are subtly anthropomorphized
What's more, his urgent, physical pacing suggests a kind of throughout the poem, granted human-like emotions and
instinctive power that the speaker admires and even longs for. actions. In line 1, for example, the speaker says that the apes
Being like this symbolic jaguar, the poem suggests, might mean "adore their fleas." Later, the speaker talks about how the tigers
feeling unconfined by societal strictures and conformity. and lions are "fatigued with indolence"—in other words, bored
of being bored.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:
While it's possible that the animals might literally be bored and
• Lines 9-20 depressed, the speaker presents all these emotions in a
strikingly anthropomorphic light. Reading the animals this way,
the speaker also seems to see his own feelings in them: he
POETIC DEVICES seems bored and depressed by the animals' boredom and
despair. The anthropomorphism in the poem, though subtle,
ALLITERATION asks the reader to consider the relationship between humans
and animals—why the former keep the latter cages and pay to
Alliter
Alliteration
ation appears frequently throughout the poem, bringing
stare at them, for instance.
its images and ideas to life on the page. Take line 7, for example,
in which the speaker notices how "cage after cage": The star of the show—the jaguar—is also anthropomorphized.
The speaker views the jaguar as "enraged," refusing to give in to
St
Stinks of sleepers from the breathing st
straw. the dull terms of his imprisonment. He embodies primal
instinct, energy, danger, and beauty, all traits which the poem
Hushed sibilance suggests the whispery breath of sleeping implicitly admires. These qualities make him similar to a
creatures, while the sharp /t/ sounds make it seem almost like "visionary [in] his cell" who lives in his imagination and won't let
the speaker is spitting these words out in disgust. his spirit be broken.
Some of the poem's most striking alliteration coincides with the Anthropomorphism thus invites readers to reflect on the
arrival of the jaguar. The animal's presence transfixes the relationship between humans and animals, and it also gives an
watching crowd, which "st stands" and "st stares" in mesmerized indirect picture of what the speaker values.
awe; alliteration, appropriately, intensifies the poem's language
to reflect the jaguar's power. His fiery eyes are like "d drills" that Where Anthropomorphism appears in the poem:
bore through the "d darkness" of his cage; those glowing eyes are • Lines 1-5
like the lit end of a "short fierce fuse," the /f/ sounds perhaps • Lines 11-20
mirroring the fizzle of a flame on a fuse line.
The alliteration gets even more intense in line 15, with the loud ASSONANCE
/b/ sounds of "b
by the bang of blood in the brain" ring out like
Like alliter
alliteration
ation and consonance
consonance, assonance intensifies the
the repeated thwack of a hammer. At the moment, the poem's
poem's images, bringing them to life on the page.
language mimics the pulse of blood in both the jaguar's ear,

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In the first two stanzas, for instance, assonance conjures with primal urgency. He's totally in the moment, and the
boredom and despair, as in line 1: asyndeton here suggests the immediacy of his perceptions.
The last two lines similarly portray the jaguar's power:
The apes yaawn and ado
ore their fleas in the sun.
The world rolls under the long thrust of his heel,
These long /aw/ sounds (which would be assonant in Hughes's Ov
Over
er the cage floor the horizons come.
English accent, if not necessarily to an American reader's ear)
are slow and heavy, evoking the behavior of the apes. The lack of an "and" here makes these words seem all the more
Later in the poem, assonance paints the jaguar as a powerful, dramatic, drawing attention to the idea that the jaguar is the
primal, and frightening creature. This is particularly noticeable center of the world and master of his environment—even
in line 14: though he is in a cage.

The eye satisfiied to be bliind in fiire, Where Asyndeton appears in the poem:
• Lines 10-10: “stands, stares, / mesmerized,”
These striking long /i/ sounds are the equivalent of the poem
• Lines 14-15: “The eye satisfied to be blind in fire, / By the
turning up its own volume: the insistent repetition demands
bang of blood in the brain deaf the ear —”
readers' attention, evoking the speaker's fascination with the
• Lines 19-20: “The world rolls under the long thrust of his
jaguar.
heel, / Over the cage floor the horizons come.”

Where Assonance appears in the poem:

CAESURA
• Line 1: “yawn,” “adore” Caesur
Caesuraa slows the poem down. This has two different
• Line 4: “tiger,” “lion” purposes: to create an atmosphere of boredom in the poem's
• Line 6: “seems” opening stanzas, and then to build a sense of awe once the
• Line 7: “ sleepers,” “breathing” speaker discovers the jaguar.
• Line 9: “arrives”
• Line 10: “mesmerized” In the early part of the poem, caesura works hand in hand with
• Line 14: “eye satisfied,” “blind,” “fire” end-stopping
end-stopping. Commas in line 2 ("The parrots[...]") and line 4
• Line 19: “under,” “thrust” ("Fatigued with indolence[...]") intentionally prevent the poem
from building momentum. Then, the poem doubles down on
this effect with the full-stop caesurae:
ASYNDETON
Asyndeton helps evoke the jaguar's fascinating power. Take a Fatigued with indolence, || tiger and lion
look at line 10, for example:
Lie still as the sun.. || The boa-constrictor’s coil
Is a fossil.. || Cage after cage seems empty, or
At a cage where the crowd stands, stares,
mesmerized,
These solid periods are the poem's equivalent of lying down or
curling up, as if it's saying it's too bored and depressed to move.
All three words highlighted here describe the hush of a crowd In this way, caesura mirrors the mood of the zoo animals.
enthralled by the jaguar's primal majesty. The asyndeton makes
this moment feel more still, as if the poem, too, is suddenly The caesurae that appear once the speaker finds the jaguar
caught in the jaguar's aura. Each word stands alone, like work a little differently, creating hypnotic rhythms that evoke
members of the crowd arriving and freezing in place one by the crowd's awe. This is a different kind of inactivity, being
one. "mesmerized" as opposed to being bored:

The speaker then describes the jaguar's behavior:

At a cage where the crowd stands,, || stares,, ||
mesmerized,
[...] Not in boredom — As a child at a dream,, || at a jaguar hurrying enraged
The eeyye satisfied to be blind in fire, Through prison darkness after the drills of his eyes
By the bang of blood in the br brain
ain deaf the ear —
On a short fierce fuse.. || Not in boredom — (lines
He spins from the bars[...]
10-13)
The two middle lines here are a kind of aside in which the
The commas have a dreamlike feel, while the full-stop caesura
speaker imagines the jaguar's inner world as he stalks his cage
in line 13 draws attention to the word "fuse." "Fuse" suggests a

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metaphorical explosion of violence just waiting to happen, and longer due to all the firm end-stops, which slow down the
landing on it so heavily makes the jaguar seem even more poem's pace to match its descriptions of languid, depressed
majestically dangerous. animals.
Check this technique out in action—or inaction—in the first line:
Where Caesur
Caesuraa appears in the poem:
• Line 2: “fire, or” The apes yawn and adore their fleas in the sun.
• Line 4: “indolence, tiger”
• Line 5: “sun. The” The poem has hardly begun, but it's already taking a break on
• Line 6: “fossil. Cage,” “empty, or” the word "sun"! This pause captures the apes' frustration at
• Line 10: “stands, stares, mesmerized,” being caged.
• Line 11: “dream, at” In the following stanza, two lines are end-stopped in a row:
• Line 13: “fuse. Not”
• Line 16: “bars, but” Is a fossil. Cage after cage seems empty, or
Stinks of sleepers from the breathing str
straaw.
CONSONANCE It might be painted on a nursery wall.
Consonance
Consonance, like assonance and alliter
alliteration
ation, helps to paint
pictures in the reader's mind, with particular sounds There's not much happening here: the whole zoo seems caught
embodying what's being described. under a sleeping spell. But the real purpose of the end-stopping
is not just to evoke fatigue, but to create a kind of dull backdrop
Take the spiky /t/ sounds in lines 2 and 3:
against which the jaguar can stand out dramatically. End-stops
here are like the lights going down in the cinema before the film
The parrots shriek as if they were on fire, or sttrutt
actually starts.
Like cheap tartts to att
ttractt the sttroller with the nutt.
When the jaguar actually appears, the end-stops get a lot more
These sharp sounds call attention to themselves, reflecting the lively. In fact, some hardly feel like stops at all:
parrots' attempts to "strut" and show off in the hope of getting
some nuts. On a short fierce fuse. Not in boredom —
The eye satisfied to be blind in fire,
By the bang of blood in the brain deaf the ear —
Where Consonance appears in the poem:
• Line 2: “strut” All the end-stops here are breathless dashes or brief
• Line 3: “tarts to attract,” “stroller,” “nut” commas—a far cry from the trudge of periods in the first
• Line 4: “indolence,” “and lion” stanzas. Here, end-stopped lines evoke the jaguar's furious
• Line 5: “still,” “sun,” “boa-constrictor’s coil” pacing.
• Line 6: “Cage after cage,” “empty”
• Line 7: “Stinks of sleepers,” “straw” Where End-Stopped Line appears in the poem:
• Line 9: “runs,” “rest,” “arrives”
• Line 10: “cage,” “crowd,” “stands, stares,” • Line 1: “sun.”
• Line 11: “jaguar,” “enraged” • Line 3: “nut.”
• Line 12: “darkness,” “drills” • Line 7: “straw.”
• Line 13: “fierce fuse” • Line 8: “wall.”
• Line 14: “be blind” • Line 10: “mesmerized,”
• Line 15: “By,” “bang,” “blood,” “brain” • Line 13: “boredom —”
• Line 16: “bars” • Line 14: “fire,”
• Line 18: “stride,” “wildernesses” • Line 15: “ear —”
• Line 19: “world rolls,” “long,” “heel” • Line 17: “cell:”
• Line 20: “cage,” “floor,” “come” • Line 18: “freedom:”
• Line 19: “heel,”
END-STOPPED LINE • Line 20: “come.”

End-stopping works with caesur

caesuraa to pace the poem, helping to
shape its mood and tone.
ENJAMBMENT
Enjambment typically creates momentum and energy, but the
Though the first section of the poem (which takes place before
poem uses the technique a little differently in the first two
the speaker finds the jaguar) is shorter than the second, it feels

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stanzas. While these two do have a lot of enjambment, it's The jaguar's eyes are like powerful tools drilling through the
constantly undercut by end-stops and full-stop caesur
caesurae
ae: oppressive darkness of the cage—a metaphor that might
remind readers that drilling is a pretty classic method for
The parrots shriek as if they were on fire, or strut escaping "prison"! The "fuse" suggests the jaguar might explode
Lik
Likee cheap tarts to attract the stroller with the nut. into violence at any moment.
Fatigued with indolence, tiger and lion The speaker goes on to describe the jaguar's eyes as "blind in
Lie still as the sun. The boa-constrictor’s coil fire," effectively saying that the jaguar is so passionately
Is a fossil. Cage after cage seems empty, or "enraged" that he doesn't acknowledge his immediate
Stinks of sleepers from the breathing straw. environment; rather, he is on a different, more "visionary" plane
of existence. This jaguar seems both to live in the moment and
Here, each time momentum starts building, it gets interrupted in a kind of elsewhere in which he rules his domain, not caged at
by a period. Movement is what people expect to see from zoo all.
animals, but the enjambments here suggest these caged
Finally, the last two lines portray the jaguar as a kind of
creatures are too depressed and lethargic to move far.
gravitational force at the center of the world; his mere
Except, that is, for the jaguar. When this big cat arrives, the presence creates "wildernesses" around him. The whole world
poem dials up the enjambment to match: bows to him, rolling under his heel (line 19); likewise, horizons
"come" to meet him, rather than the other way around. These
But who runs like the rest past these arriv
arrives
es images emphasize the jaguar's fierce, primal, masterful power,
At a cage where the crowd stands, stares, and his enraged spirit of independence: he seems to be the
mesmerized, ruler of a personified natural world.
As a child at a dream, at a jaguar hurrying enr
enraged
aged
Contrast these images with the metaphor that appears in the
Through prison darkness after the drills of his eyes
second stanza: "The boa-constrictor’s coil / Is a fossil" (lines 5
On a short fierce fuse. and 6). This is part of the poem's scene-setting, in which the zoo
is portrayed as a boring and depressing place to be. The snake
This enjambment suggests rapid, violent movement, fitting the here looks like something that's been dead for millennia. The
image of the jaguar "spin[ning] from the bars." metaphor subtly suggests that captivity denies wild animals
their wildness: this snake might as well be stone.
Where Enjambment appears in the poem:
• Lines 2-3: “strut / Like” Where Metaphor appears in the poem:
• Lines 4-5: “lion / Lie” • Lines 5-6: “ The boa-constrictor’s coil / Is a fossil.”
• Lines 5-6: “coil / Is” • Lines 11-13: “at a jaguar hurrying enraged / Through
• Lines 6-7: “or / Stinks” prison darkness after the drills of his eyes / On a short
• Lines 9-10: “arrives / At” fierce fuse.”
• Lines 11-12: “enraged / Through” • Lines 14-15: “The eye satisfied to be blind in fire, / By the
• Lines 12-13: “eyes / On” bang of blood in the brain deaf the ear —”
• Lines 16-17: “him / More” • Line 18: “His stride is wildernesses of freedom:”
• Lines 19-20: “The world rolls under the long thrust of his
METAPHOR heel, / Over the cage floor the horizons come.”
The poem uses metaphor to give its description of the jaguar
layers of mysterious meaning. REPETITION
Like the "mesmerized" crowd, the speaker is in awe of the Repetition helps to make the lives of the animals in the "The
jaguar's frightening, majestic, and beautiful presence. Jaguar" feel limited, dull, and—well, repetitive!
Metaphor helps capture this feeling: First up, there's the par
parallelism
allelism of the first two lines:

[...] a jaguar hurrying enraged The apes ya

yawn
wn and adore their fleas in the sun.
Through prison darkness after the drills of his eeyyes The parrots shriek as if they were on fire, or strut
On a short fierce fuse. Not in boredom — Like cheap tarts to attract the stroller with the nut.
The eeyye satisfied to be blind in fire,
By the bang of blood in the br brain
ain deaf the ear — These moments of anaphor
anaphoraa help to establish the scene. Like a
He spins from the bars, visitor at a zoo, the poem moves from exhibit to exhibit, from
one animal to the next. It's a repetitive process reflected in

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repetitious language. It also hints at the dull, samey days which
the animals have to live over and over again; the apes, this • Lines 4-5: “Fatigued with indolence, tiger and lion / Lie
phrasing suggests, always "yawn," and the parrots always still as the sun.”
"shriek." • Lines 10-11: “the crowd stands, stares, mesmerized, / As
a child at a dream,”
In line 6, meanwhile, the speaker explains how "cage
cage after cage
seems empty." This is diacope
diacope, and it has a similar effect to the
anaphora described above. The speaker's gaze still seems to CHIASMUS
travel from one cage to the next—but what speaker sees is just The poem reaches its climax with the awe-inspiring sight of the
a series of animals so dispirited and miserable that they might jaguar who, unlike the other zoo creatures, doesn't give in to his
as well not be there at all. imprisonment. Instead, he appears to be master of his domain.
Repetition thus evoke the rote, limited world of the zoo. On the one hand, this is an illusion—the jaguar is still trapped in
a cage. But he acts as if he is free, which, in a way, makes him
free. To the speaker, the jaguar has a different relationship with
Where Repetition appears in the poem:
his environment than the other animals at the zoo:
• Line 1: “The apes yawn”
• Line 2: “The parrots shriek” The world rolls under the long thrust of his heel,
• Line 6: “Cage after cage” Over the cage floor the horizons come.

SIMILE Such is the jaguar's strength that the world seems to be

"The Jaguar" uses similes to help readers to imagine the governed by his will, as though he is the center around which
animals' unhappiness—and the jaguar's power. everything else orbits. Chiasmus helps to evoke this strange
phenomenon, putting the jaguar right in the middle of the
Lines 2-3, for instance, use two similes in quick succession:
"world" and the "horizons." First, line 19 moves from the
"world" to the spot where the jaguar paces; then, line 20 moves
The parrots shriek as if the
theyy were on fire
fire, or strut
from that same ground out to the distant "horizons."
Lik
Likee cheap tarts to attract the stroller with the nut.
This chiasmus makes the jaguar feel like a concentrated force of
The similes here present the parrots as desperately unhappy. wild power, imagination, and self-possession. Wherever he
They "shriek" as if they are about to die in a fire, suggesting a goes, he always seems to be at the exact center of the world.
kind of existential crisis. But they also "strut" around like "cheap
tarts"—a derogatory British turn of phrase that might mean Where Chiasmus appears in the poem:
either sex workers or promiscuous women. There is also • Lines 19-20: “The world rolls under the long thrust of his
something desperate about this, of course; the parrots are heel, / Over the cage floor the horizons come.”
reduced to parading themselves for a small reward.
Meanwhile, tigers and lions, two of the most fearsome
creatures on the planet, "lie still as the sun." This simile suggests VOCABULARY
an endless, hot, dull summer afternoon, when the sun hardly
seems to stir—and thus evokes the big cats' boredom and Strut (Lines 2-3) - To walk in a show-offy or attention-grabbing
discomfort. way.
Later in the poem, the speaker encounters a crowd Cheap tarts (Lines 2-3) - A derogatory British term that can
"mesmerized" by the sight of the jaguar. They stare like "a child mean either "sex workers" or "promiscuous women."
at a dream." This simile suggests that the jaguar has a
Stroller (Line 3) - A person strolling past.
"visionary" quality: not only is he presented as an imaginative
force himself, he makes the people who look at him feel as if Indolence (Lines 4-5) - Laziness, inactivity.
they were confronting a mysterious image from the depths of Boa-constrictor (Lines 5-6) - A large snake that kills its prey by
their own sleeping minds. squeezing it to death.
Nursery (Lines 8-8) - A British word for preschool; this might
Where Simile appears in the poem: also refer to a traditional children's playroom/bedroom.
• Lines 2-3: “The parrots shriek as if they were on fire, or Mesmerized (Line 10) - Transfixed, hypnotized.
strut / Like cheap tarts to attract the stroller with the Fuse (Line 13) - A length of string or wire that, lit on fire, sparks
nut.”
an explosive.

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Visionary (Lines 17-17) - Someone with remarkable foresight though, that some of the rhymes are loose or slant
slant—for
and imagination. instance, "boredom" and "to him" in lines 13 and 16, or "coil"
Stride (Lines 18-18) - A long step. and "wall" in lines 5 and 8. The wildness of the rhymes cuts
across the strictures of the rhyme scheme, suggesting all the
Wildernesses (Lines 18-18) - Areas of land uninhabited by primal power trapped in that zoo.
humans.
But the poem disrupts its rhyming pattern twice, first in the
third stanza ("But who rungs [...] drills of his eyes"]:
FORM, METER, & RHYME AABA
And then in the final stanza, which runs like this:
FORM
ABAB
"The Jaguar" is built from five quatrains, or four-line stanzas.
This regular shape mirrors the physical constraint on the lives Both stanzas focus on the jaguar's movements in his cell. This
of the animals at the zoo: the stanzas are as boxy as cages. The break from the rhyme scheme thus reflects the jaguar's power,
speaker moves from stanza to stanza like one of those independence, and wildness: he might be trapped in a zoo, but
"strollers" passing from one cage to the next. in some sense, no cage can really hold him!
The poem sometimes creates tension by enjambing between
stanzas, suggesting the animals' deep-rooted desire to break SPEAKER
free (e.g., "but there's no cage to him // More than to the
visionary his cell" in the last two stanzas). The speaker is a visitor to the zoo—and one with strong feelings
It's also worth noting that the poem effectively divides into two about the lives and natures of the animals there.
distinct sections. The first two stanzas depict the speaker For the most part, the speaker views the zoo as a dull
walking idly around the zoo before finding the jaguar. The next experience. Most of the animals seem both bored and boring,
three show the jaguar as awe-inspiring, majestic, and too beaten down by captivity even to move.
frightening. This division creates a clear contrast between the But the speaker's mood changes when they join a crowd
depressing "indolence" of most animals at the zoo and the standing "mesmerized" at the sight of the jaguar. Like the
hypnotic power of the jaguar. others, the speaker finds the jaguar fascinating because this
wild beast seems to refuse the conditions of its imprisonment.
METER
The jaguar speaks to a primal, instinctive, natural energy that
The poem doesn't have a strict meter
meter, though the lines are all of can't be contained and, indeed, should be celebrated.
a similar length. However, sometimes it slips into iambic
rhythms. For instance, line 8 is in perfect iambic pentameter, This admiration for primal power is a common thread
meaning that it uses five iambs, metrical feet with a da-DUM
DUM throughout Hughes's poetry! It's thus fair to read a little bit of
rhythm. Here's how that sounds: the poet himself in the figure of the speaker.

It might | be paint- | ed on | a nurse- | ry wall

wall.
SETTING
The rigid regularity of the meter here captures the zoo's "The Jaguar" is set at a zoo and, as expected, it's full of animals.
atmosphere of boredom and depression. But the poem suggests that a zoo is no place for a wild creature.
Other than that line, though, the poem's rhythms are pretty The apes are bored, the parrots seem stressed, and the tigers
unpredictable. The looseness of the meter creates tension by and lions are tired even of being tired. All in all, the zoo seems
being at odds with the tightness of the regular quatrain form, to take the wild out of the wilderness. The first two stanzas
mirroring the tension between the animals' natural wildness create an overall atmosphere of inertia and apathy.
and their imprisonment. But this is a kind of trick, setting the stage for the jaguar to
appear. The last two stanzas are effectively set in the speaker's
RHYME SCHEME
imagination as the poem envisions life from the jaguar's fiery
This poem has a regular rh
rhyme
yme scheme almost all the way perspective.
through. Each stanza except the third and the last runs like this:
ABBA
That means that the first and last end rhymes of each stanza
enclose the couplet in the middle, a subtle form of poetic
imprisonment that reflects the zoo animals' predicament. Note,

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perhaps a slightly unusual subject in his poems.
CONTEXT Human civilization has been keeping animals in enclosures for
LITERARY CONTEXT thousands of years. For a while, collections of animals were a
symbol of royal power and reach (e.g., King Louis XIV's
"The Jaguar" was first published in The Hawk In the Rain, Ted menagerie at Versailles). Nowadays, zoos often perform acts of
Hughes's debut collection of poetry (1957). The book was a conservation as well as being open to the public—though the
critical and commercial success, and it formed a sharp contrast ethics of imprisoning animals remains controversial.
with the work of Hughes's contemporaries.
English writers like Philip Larkin, Kingsley Amis, and Donald
Davie valued convention, restraint, and simplicity in their MORE RESOUR
RESOURCES
CES
writing. Hughes's collection, on the other hand, offered
something more instinctive, primal, and raw—something more EXTERNAL RESOURCES
jaguar-like, perhaps! The poet himself said that the collection • The P
Poem
oem Aloud — Listen to Hughes himself reading the
would "challenge everything being written in England." poem out loud. (https:/
(https:///youtu.be/n-mB8T
outu.be/n-mB8TsUGMo
sUGMo))
Hughes's wife, the American poet Sylvia Plath, considered
• Ted Hughes's CrCraft
aft — Read an interview in which the poet
Hughes's poetry "the most rich and powerful since that of
talks about his relationship with poetry.
Yeats and Dylan Thomas." Poems like "The Jaguar" were thus
(https:/
(https://www
/www.theparisre
.theparisreview
view.org/interviews/1669/the-
.org/interviews/1669/the-
the start of a long career.
art-of-poetry-no-71-ted-hughes)
Animals occupied a central role throughout Hughes's poetry,
where they symbolically reflect the human psyche. The jaguar, • Hughes's Life and W
Work
ork — Watch a BBC
for instance, is a kind of primal force made flesh. Hughes's documentary about Hughes. (https:/
(https://www
/www..youtube.com/
poetry implicitly values such energies—and, indeed, suggests watch?v=XbA
watch?v=XbAGbjXPCP8)
GbjXPCP8)
that modern life often neglects them. In the same collection, • Ted Hughes's Life and W Work
ork — Visit the Poetry Foundation
"The
The Thought F Foox" and "The
The Ha
Hawkwk in the Rain
Rain" similarly mix to read a brief biography of Hughes and find more of his
literal appreciation for the animal world with something deeper poetry. (https:/
(https://www
/www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/ted-
.poetryfoundation.org/poets/ted-
and more symbolic. In his poems, visceral, violent nature shines hughes)
with mystery.
LITCHARTS ON OTHER TED HUGHES POEMS
Hughes also returned to jaguars specifically multiple times in
his work, as in a later poem titled "Second
Second LLook
ook at a Jaguar
Jaguar" as • A Picture of Otto
well as an unpublished poem titled "Jaguar Skin." • Ba
Bayyonet Charge
• Ha
Hawk
wk Roosting
The poem also perhaps draws parallels with Rainer Maria • The Thought F Fo
ox
Rilke's poem "The
The P
Panther
anther." But whereas Rilke's big cat is • Wind
despairing and "weary," the jaguar seems full of life and anger.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT HOW T

TO
O CITE
Ted Hughes (1930-1998) was one of the foremost figures of
20th-century English poetry, both critically acclaimed and
MLA
commercially successful. He was married to Sylvia Plath from
1956 until her death by suicide in 1963. Howard, James. "The Jaguar." LitCharts. LitCharts LLC, 1 Oct 2021.
Web. 18 Oct 2021.
Hughes worked for a time at the London Zoo after graduating
from Cambridge in 1954. There, he observed jaguars in CHICAGO MANUAL
captivity. The animals clearly fascinated Hughes, who also Howard, James. "The Jaguar." LitCharts LLC, October 1, 2021.
created two sculptures in their shape. He later gifted these Retrieved October 18, 2021. https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/
objects to his brother and sister. Hughes grew up in rural ted-hughes/the-jaguar.
England, however, and much of his poetry was inspired by the
wildlife of the English countryside. A caged animal is thus

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