On Ted Hughes’ Becoming-fox Process In The Thought Fox

The British poet, Ted Hughes, is a distinguished animal poet. In his The Thought Fox, a kind of signature piece for him, which he called his “first animal poem”, creative activity is performed by a fox. A fox enters into his head and becomes his thought. We can say of the poem what Hughes says of the fox. He thinks of poems as a sort of animal and he becomes a fox.This thesis tries to offer a new angle to appreciate this animal poem of Hughes through Deleuze’s philosophy of becoming-animal, aiming at digging out how Hughes becomes a fox, and tries to analyze why he becomes a fox rather than other animals. It thereby explores the interaction between fox and Hughes and Hughes’ desires signified in this poem, and ultimately evaluates the value of breaking the border between humans and animals.The dissertation first lays out the general foundation of the studied object, covering the theory adopted, relevant studies and significance of the thesis.Chapter one mainly probes into Hughes’ poem The Thought Fox and investigates how Hughes becomes a fox from two aspects: one aspect is from Deleuze’ s line of flight, the second aspect focuses on the parallel movement relationship between Hughes and fox.Chapter two mainly discusses the reason why Hughes chooses to become a fox rather than other animals from two dimensions. The first dimension starts from the workable alternative animals: horse and wolf. Then the thesis goes on to expound Hughes’ fox complex.Chapter three highlights Hughes’ desires to be a famous poet and to save a fox through his poetry, saying that Hughes becomes a fox and the fox becomes the poem in a constant difference and repetition process.The final part, the conclusion, summarizes three kinds of foxes mentioned in the poem: the real fox, the thought-fox and the becoming-fox. It sheds light on the importance of employing the becoming-animal theory in Hughes’ animal poems with a special stress on what makes us think rather than thinking itself.