Roe Deer

Ted Hughes
5 Minute
Starter
Skim and Scan
the information
from ‘The British
Deer Society’,that
is on the board.
Write three
questions about
the roe deer,
based on the
information that
you have read.
If you are asked,
share your
questions with
the class and see
how quickly they
can find the
information that
answers your
questions.
 to the poem being
the poem to
read. yourself

the poem to the

person sitting
next to you.

Can you work out what ‘the story’ of the poem is? What is going on?

are some questions you can try and answer if you

don’t know where to start summarising the poem:
What is the weather like?
What time of day is it?
What does the speaker see?
What happens to what the speaker sees?
How did you do?

In the dawn, on the snowiest day of the year,

the speaker remembers two deer appearing in
the middle of the road, like they had
materialised from another world.

The deer are very still as if waiting for the

speaker to say a magic word.

For a moment the speaker feels this is like a

boundary to another world and the deer have
come to take him with them.

The deer run away towards a dark wood and

vanish into the snow.

Soon, the snow covers all their tracks.

Poetry Lessons -

● Understand the ‘plot’ of the poem.

● Analyse and annotate the poem.
● Complete an essay style question about
the poem.
● Fill in a poetry revision grid.
HOMEWORK:
COMPLETE A
STORYBOARD,
SHOWING THE
PLOT OF THE
POEM. USE
QUOTATIONS
AND IMAGES.
 Assonance is used
In the dawn’s early light, in the biggest snow of the year extensively in the
opening lines of this
Two blue-dark deer stood in the road, alerted. poem. Here a long ‘oo’
sound is repeated ‘two’
and ‘blue’ and a long ‘ee’
sound ‘year’ and ‘deer’
this gives a sense of a
stopped moment in time -
where Hughes sees the
deer and they see him. It
makes the moment seem
Use of anaphora ‘In the’ intense, out of the realms
acts like a drum roll - of normal time, like a
Hughes is announcing spell being cast.
something spectacular is
to come. So the feeling,
the tone, Hughes wants
to transmit the reader at
the start of this poem - is
a tone of anticipation of
something special about
to happen.
 assonance
The repetition of similar vowel sound in words which are
placed close together. This can create a kind of rhythm or
half-rhyme which make the words seem more poetic or
lyrical, creating mood or atmosphere.
They had happened into my dimension Hughes using enjambment to show how
time seems to slow down or stop
completely - he is hypnotised by the deers.
The moment I was arriving just there.
The lines run into each other, almost like a
spell being cast that Hughes does not want
to break.

Hughes grew up in the countryside in Yorkshire and it

seems this encounter with deer is something that really
happened to him. Hughes was fascinated with nature
and this mysterious encounter - this ‘moment’ has
endured because he has written it down. In a way this
moment exists like the thing that Hughes experienced on
the day he saw the deer - the poem is like a gateway, a
glimpse into the universe of the deer for us: like this
moment is something we step into and exists when we
read the poem. The curtain to the deer’s universe is
lifted.
They planted their 2 or 3 years of secret deerhood

Clear on my snow screen vision of the abnormal

Hughes alludes to the fact that the deers

are like a secret order, like the Knights
Templar: they have a secret code they live
‘Clear on my snow screen
vision’ appears to be a by and you can only know it if you are one
paradox. Hughes sees the of them.
outline of the deers, he
thinks clearly, but his vision
is hindered by ‘snow
screen’ meaning the snow is
falling heavily: so he cannot
actually make out the deer
clearly. The snow screen
adds to the sense of mystery
- he cannot see the deer
clearly: it is like the white
noise on an old TV.
And hesitated in the all-way disintegration Sibilance: ‘some lasting seconds’ the
repetition of the ‘s’ sound gives a sense of
And stared at me. And so for some lasting seconds hush - silence. We whisper the words as
we are aware, as Hughes is, any loud
I could think the deer were waiting for me sound could destroy the moment, by
frightening the deer.
To remember the password and sign

‘all - way disintegration’ sounds like awkward phrasing, it

sounds like Hughes cannot express in words what is happening.
The hyphen between all-way breaks up the phrase too. But
This links back to the idea of ‘secret deer actually this clevering shows what is happening: Hughes’ vision
hood’ Many secret orders have secret seems to be breaking down, perhaps the snow has got much
handshakes, symbols and signs to heavier and he can’t see much and is becoming disorientated,
recognise each by. Here Hughes feels trying to focus on the deer.
like the deer are giving him a chance to
say the right password and he will be able
to go with the deer. I think this a relatable
moment - how many times after an
encounter or event have you not been
able to say the right thing and the moment
was lost?
That the curtain had blown aside for a moment

And there where the trees were no longer trees, nor the road

a road

This poem is unmistakably set in the English countryside at

dawn, ‘tree-dark’ and ‘snow’(y). Remember Ted Hughes was
raised in the countryside in West Yorkshire. Clearly, this poem is
autobiographical. At this point in the poem the trees and the road
seem to transform for a second as if Hughes has stumbled on a
gateway to a parallel universe where the ‘trees were no longer
trees.’ The road is also mentioned as Hughes is trying to make
us aware how we humans butt up against nature and we don’t
seem to see it. Further to this, how without us realising nature
could be a doorway to another world. In this poem Hughes is
like a Shaman - for a second the deer appear to have opened a
gateway to him and he is inhabiting another reality.
The deer had come for me. The poem is made up of 11
stanzas, most are unrhymed
couplets (perhaps representing the
two deer) - apart from this line -
Then they ducked thru the hedge, and upright they rode ‘The deer had come for me’.
This line is on its own to show
Hughes’ surprise and sudden
their legs
realisation that he feels he has
been picked out by the deer to
Away downhill over snow-lonely field
travel with them to another
magical, deer-filled dimension -
which would be heart stopping and
The enjambment here works is why this line is on its own. For a
in the opposite way to how it moment he is in a liminal space
was used earlier. Here the with the deer and is afraid he
enjambment echoes the cannot hold it. And he doesn’t
deers’ swift movement and because in the next line the deer
gives a sense of Hughes are running away.
tracking them with his eyes
as they run away.
Towards tree-dark–finally

Seeming to eddy and glide and fly away up

‘Boil of big flakes’. The word boil is

Into the boil of big flakes. interesting, showing as the deer run
away the snow seems to intensify and
The snow took them and soon their nearby hoofprints as well. looks like fast boiling water. The
repetition of the ‘b’ sound echoes the
large balloon like flakes. The word boil
might also show some of Hughes’
The enjambment shows how frustration at the moment passing.
smoothly and quickly the deer
seem to disappear back into their
own world. It is almost like they
dissolve into the snow - not a
trace left behind.
Revising its dawn inspiration
After the excitement and wonder of seeing the deer we are
left with a philosophical and reflective tone.
Back to the ordinary
Hughes comments the moment is quickly gone and the
snow ‘revising its dawn inspiration’ falls over the
footprints of the deer - and it is like it never happened. We
are back to just snow ‘back to the ordinary’.

However, Hughes wrote the poem perhaps to remind us of

the special and extraordinary moments that can happen in
life and that the mystery of life is so much bigger than we
can conceive and sometimes we can see beyond the
‘curtain’ to something else.
 Now you have completed your
annotations, use some of them to
fill in your revision grid. Remember
to write in note form.

‘Deep’ is developing your point -

explaining the meaning of words in your
quote and showing why the poet has
selected those particular words - how do
they want the reader to feel?
‘Quote’ means
‘Shallow’ words from your
means a text you are ‘Profound’ is
basic point - using to illustrate developing a point
like naming a your point - short to the fullest
language phrases or single extent. You might
device, or the words are best to make interesting
rhyme show the
scheme. comments about
examiner you
links to context, to
really understand
other literature or
what you have
read. how we live today.
Respond to this exam style
question by writing an essay:
Use your revision grid to help
you.

How does Hughes present

nature as mysterious and
magical in Roe Deer?
Remember to write about
language, context, structure,
voice and tone.

Remember to address the

question throughout the essay.
Twist your revision notes to
suit the question.

You have 45 minutes to

complete this task.
 Extension Work - Creative
Challenge

Write a 300-500 word story that begins

with the line:

If only I had known what to say.