Student Question
Analyze themes, figures of speech, mood, and tone in Alan Brownjohn's poem "The Rabbit".
Quick answer:
Alan Brownjohn's "The Rabbit" explores themes of ecological disaster and the consequences of technological advancement. The poem uses repetition and a dark tone to highlight the near-extinction of a species due to human actions. The mood shifts from excitement to despair as people realize the rabbit has escaped. The poem concludes with irony, as the rabbit pities the humans who caused its plight.
On its face, “The Rabbit” appears to be a simple poem. However, a deeper analysis reveals Alan Brownjohn’s futuristic poem to be a frightening portent of an ecological disaster brought upon the world by mankind’s abuses of the Earth. Technology and expansion have resulted in the near-extermination of a species and threatens the very existence of humanity.
As this dystopian poem unfolds, the speaker describes through repetition an excited group of people heading to what is an attraction or tourist sight:
We are going to see the rabbit.
We are going to see the rabbit.
The speaker is surprised to see the children in the group unaware of “which rabbit” they are going to see, and he explains it is “The only rabbit in England.”
The journey to see the rare species highlights a disappointing setting:
Sitting behind a barbed-wire fence
Under the floodlights, neon lights,
Sodium lights,
Nibbling grass
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Nibbling grass
On the only patch of grass
In England, in England
(Except the grass by the billboards
Which doesn't count.)
It is clear that the planet has been scorched by mankind, leaving little food to eat or room to roam in the animal prison created for the exhibition. As the journey progresses, the reader gets a glimpse of the reason for the plight of the rare rabbit. Technology, urbanization, and expansion have produced a society of citizens who find the simple task of walking a chore:
First we shall go by escalator,
Then we shall go by underground,
And then we shall go by motorway,
And then by helicopter way,
And the last ten yards we shall have to go
On foot.
As the speaker arrives at his destination, he observes the crowds of thousands who have reached the end of their journey. Their mood has changed from excitement to anger. The rabbit has escaped to hide from its captors, and those who have created the dilemma of the vanishing species become distraught:
The rabbit has gone,
Yes, the rabbit has gone.
He has actually burrowed down into the earth
And made himself a warren, under the earth,
Despite all these people,
And what shall we do?
What can we do?
Brownjohn concludes his poem with a touch of irony. It is the rabbit, squeezed and hunted into near extinction, that feels sorry for the people that drove him into hiding:
It is all a pity, you must be disappointed,
Go home and do something for today,
Go home again, go home for today.
For you cannot hear the rabbit, under the earth,
Remarking rather sadly to himself, by himself,
As he rests in his warren, under the earth:
“It won't be long, they are bound to come,
They are bound to come and find me, even here.”
Utilizing a dark tone, Brownjohn ends his poem with an admonition by the rabbit itself. Unless humankind alters its path to the future, the Earth and its entire population, including its people, will go the way of the rabbit and ultimately perish.