"Red Fox" Commentary

RED FOX

The red fox crosses the ice
intent on none of my business.
It's winter and slim pickings.

I stand in the bushy cemetary,
pretending to watch birds,
but really watching the fox
who could care less.
She pauses on the sheer glare
of the pond. She know's I'm there,
sniffs me in the wind at her shoulder.
If I had a gun or dog
or raw heart, she'd smell it.
She didn't get this smart for nothing.

She's a lean vixen. I can see
the ribs, the sly
trickster's eyes, filled with longing
and desperation, the skinny
feet, adept at lies.

Why encourage the notion
of virtuous poverty?

It's only an excuse
for zero charity.
Hunger corrupts, and absolute hunger
corrupts absolutely,
or almost. Of course there are mothers,
squeezing thier breasts
dry, pawning their bodies,
shedding teeth for their children,
or that's our fond belief.
But remember - Hansel
and Gretel were dumped in the forest
because their parents were starving.
Sauve qui peut. To survive we'd all turn thief

and rascal, or so says the fox,
with her coat or an elegant scoundrel,
her white knife of a smile,
who knows just where she's going:

to steal something
that doesn't belong to her -
some chicken, or one more chance,
or other life.

Commentary:

In Atwood's "Red Fox" she uses the conceit, compairing a hungry person to a fox, and imagery in order to demonstrate how poverty can cause people to make bad and desperate decisions.
Comparing a human to fox connotes that the human is sly, coniving, and a trickster. Atwood uses this conceit to demonstrate that this is what people become when they are impoverished and starving. She says, "To survive we'd all turn thief and rascal, or so says the fox," which shows how people will do whatever it takes to survive such as food, to do so. She says, "Hunger corrupts" then goes on to say "to steal somethign that doesn't belong to her - some chicken." It seems as if she is justifying the fox-like actions that humans take to survive. Using the word "corrupts" implies that the hunger takes over and makes people lose control of their inhibitions and set aside their morals to survive. Another example of people setting aside their morals for survival is when she states, "mothers...pawning their bodies."
The imagery in the poem suggests starvation, and provides reasoning as to why people are becoming sly and coniving like foxes. She says, "She's a lean vixen. I can see the ribs, the sly trickster's eyes, ... the skinny feet." These images describe the body of a fox as well as the body of a starving person, which exemplifies Atwood's conceit throughout the poem. Also, Atwood says, "Of course there are mothers, squeezing their breasts dry, pawning their bodies, shedding teeth for their children," which demonstrates the desperate measures to which a mother would turn to for her survival and the suvival of her children.