As I have propositioned the melding of Crow and the reader, the narrative, or sur-reality, that the reader goes through must thus be of a similar nature to the one that can observed of Crow.
This is the proponent from which I view a similarity with Skea’s view of Cave Birds, where Hughes pushes “both himself and his readers to the purifying processes of transmutation”
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(Skea 1994: 47). This section will attempt show how the description of Crow becomes synonymous with the experiences of the reader, as they both go through the process of transmutation through a breakdown of reality. One can see what I view as a description of this transmutation, as well as an acknowledgment of a chronology, being related in how Hughes’ describes the adventures of Crow:
Having been created, he’s put through various adventures and disasters and trials and ordeals, and the effect of these is to alter him not at all, then alter him a great deal, completely transform him, tear him to bits, put him together again, and produce him a little bit changed.
(Bentley 1998: 49) This description would be fitting of the life experiences of most conscious beings, and a high number of impactful experiences, which is however exactly what Crow is pursuing, to experience normality instead of abnormality and gain life, thus becoming “human”. The process of this is first shown in “Two Legends” where he hatches as the “black rainbow”
from “An egg of blackness” which by association of blackness as an imaginative void becomes how he first equates himself to the metaphorical void of the concept of Blackness (Hughes 1972: 1). The gradients of blackness explores the limits of the imagination, and being a “black rainbow” exclaims how Crow exists past these limits (ibid.). So black that not words nor imagination can fathom it, it shows Crow born of the Blackness of Being.
His relation to others is shown in “Crow and the Birds”, where he establishes a normality as a bird among birds, and yet separates himself from the nature of the others through his actions and thus introduces individuality, a shared trait of conscious beings, and a relatable attribute in animals (29). The individuality of Crow is conceived in his deviancy from conventionality, had Crow been “swooping” alongside the swallow then the experience of individuality would not be portrayed. It becomes a simple but effective metaphor for individuality, where Crow as a bird among birds allows a conversion into the perspective of a human among humans.
In “A Childish Prank” the reader then observes as Crow at first approaches the world through myth, giving an example of the stories that mold everyone’s world-view as they take shape before personal experience eventually takes over. Yet as he creates his own version and breaks away from the mythical narratives the reader encounters another sign of Crow’s tendency towards non-conformity, of wanting to break free, of both pursuing, and breaking down what is “normal” (8). He also extrapolates on what he learns through binary thinking in
“Crow’s Theology”, yet does so in a way which disavows God as all-powerful, producing a
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dilemma which problematizes the nature of binary thinking that is so inherent to modern Western thinking (27).
Through his obscurity Crow also establishes himself as a Trickster, a chameleon, following no true ideal or ideology, which expands on the properties of the nothing and everything that is, as argued earlier, part of his Blackness. As in “The Door”, Crow is conceived and constructed in the reader through the “eye’s pupil”, and this construction becomes based on the reader’s individuality and personality, through Crow’s blackness and Trickster nature he takes on all shapes (7). The metaphor of blackness is approached from a variety of angles, creating and growing as a reference to what I have termed the concept of Blackness as the ineffable aspects within Crow.
As Crow moves towards self-awareness we observe the creation of the double “he”, such as in “Crow Alights” and eventually “A Bedtime Story”, insinuating the possibility of a duality of selves (10, 64). The “self” of the self-awareness becomes increasingly diffuse as Crow takes shape as both figurative character and poetic style, his “true” presence defying definition. This is where the barrier between reader and concept starts melding, not only as words relate to Being, but also as Crow relates to reader, as the text itself projects the experience of self-awareness and, as I have understood it, unconceals the connection it is making with the reader.
With each new step and from each new angle that Hughes approaches Blackness he is breaking down another layer of reality, by discovering Crow’s story of obscurity and
abnormality, and by creating it as an experience of our own. It becomes an experience of a breakdown of all the aspects of our existence, from birth in “A Kill”, to self-realization and existential introspection in “Crow Alights”, and consequently then the contemplation of death in “That Moment”, all the uncomfortable truths that might not yet be unconcealed (4, 10, 11).
This experience that is created is what I view as a conducted confrontation with the
Blackness of our existence, the mystery of our Being, and the grand questions which stand as uncertainties of our society and world. Sagar quotes Strauss as he describes Crow’s restless and diversified approaches in The Art of Ted Hughes as carrying aspects of exhaustion:
Hughes shows Crow exhausting all avenues – testing all the possibilities of
illumination, transcendence, freedom, escape, and being rejected by them all – and this has the effect on the reader of a different kind of exhaustion: an exhaustion physical, mental, nervous and emotional. The experience is like having gone through some terrible destructive fight.
(Sagar 1978: 2)
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The “fight” that Strauss refers to, and the “possibilities” tested by Crow, is what I believe to be the relentless assaults on Whiteness in order to convey the Blackness of Being, the
scouring of the borders of how we define our existence. The pursuit of these borders is what I believe is tearing to bits not only Crow, as Hughes mentioned in the earlier quote, but also the reader. By dissecting the concepts born of Blackness it unveils what they are, and how they lie on the very border of our understanding. These borders of understanding are observable through, among other aspects, how I have presented Crow constructing the sense of
individuality, the establishment of understanding based on myth due to uncertainty, the extrapolating based on binaries, understanding based on language, anxieties of existential awareness and death, as well as the mysteries of free will and fate.
I believe Hughes’ “quest” for increased sensibility and against what Sagar refers to as the “mass neurosis of our urban society”, is partially derived from society fleeing towards certainty and away from uncertainty, of escaping into the meaningful Whiteness and away from the mysteries of the undetermined Blackness (Sagar 1978: 143). A false certainty is often more wanted and appreciated than a true uncertainty, exemplified by the variety of the countless theories that are embraced of death, however as Kristeva’s perspective on “truth in analysis” shows it might also in some cases be more helpful (Kristeva 1986: 17-18). I nonetheless consider part of Hughes’ quest as an attempt at a distancing from false
certainties, and instead attempting to open up perceptions to uncertainty, to the mystery of Being as the originator of our selves.
This quest is conducted through Crow, as he manifests as a shamanistic medium that
“crosses over” between real and symbolic worlds, and thus enables a similar experience of
“crossing over” for the reader. This shamanistic “crossing over” is as Zajko quotes Bassnett’s description, aiming to “proffer healing to fractured communities” (Zajko in Gifford 2011:
108). As this crossing over manifests itself, I believe Hughes’ ambition for the reader becomes akin to that of Crow as he describes Crow’s adventure; he is tearing them apart to show them their components, and at the end put them together again, producing them “a little bit changed” (Bentley 1998: 49).