How to Tell Wild Animals- Theme & Style of the Poem

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How to Tell Wild Animals

By– Carolyn Wells

Plot/ Theme / Central Idea of the Lesson/ Literary Analysis of How to Tell Wild Animals/ Main Idea

Central Idea of the Poem

The poet, Carolyn Wells, treats even ferocious animals and beasts with a coat of gentle but weird humour. If you see a huge terrible beast coming to you in the eastern forests and if you are dying when he roars, then know it is an Asian Lion. The humour is created by various beasts of prey differently. The Bengal tiger is noble but ‘eats you’ the moment he notices you. The leopard with peppered spots will only ‘lep and lep again’. The seemingly friendly hug leads to fatal results. The crocodile’s weeping and hyena’s merry but weird smile deceive their victims.

Style

The style of the poem is humorous. This humorous poem suggests some ‘dangerous ways’ to identify wild animals. The use of words and emotions are not only humorous but ironical as well. It is ironical that the ‘noble’ Bengal Tiger eats you the moment he sees you. It does no good to roar with pain when you are in front of the spotted leopard. The friendly hug of the bear is deadly. The weird but merry smile of hyenas and weeping of crocodiles trap their victims to death. The rhyme scheme of the stanzas is: ab, ab, cc

The poet takes liberties with the language to create the desired poetic effect. For example, the words Lepe and `lep’ in the third stanza are deliberately not spelt correctly to create the rhyming effect.