humanity’s pursuit of commercial success and wealth.

Not only must the penguin suffer physically (as the oil “clogs the sleekness”) but he experiences a trauma in response to his environment. The first line tells the reader that the penguin is now a “stranger in his own element,” suggesting that the penguin’s ocean home has become foreign to the penguin. It may be because of the pollution that the penguin no longer recognizes the world he once considered his “own element,” or the penguin may have to be released into a new area after being treated in captivity. In the case of the second possibility, the penguin would not be familiar with the environment or may have gotten used to life in captivity.

The penguin’s suffering is made even more accessible to the reader by Miller’s personification of the bird. She personifies the penguin by describing him as a “manikin” or a small man. Further on she compares the coloring of his feathers to “tailored coat-tails” and a “downy shirt.” This personification sets the foundation for Miller’s exploration into the penguin’s thoughts and allows the reader to empathize with the penguin’s plight.

Describing the oil as a “stain,” as “sleazy,” and that “clogs” all suggests that the oil has left a lasting mark on the penguin. With this he remembers “far too well” what happened when he went in the water. The speaker states that this memory is “too” good for the penguin’s own good as it now makes him approach his “own element” with caution and to shudder upon feeling the waves. He is no longer able to swim with innocent abandon:

His senses
Are clogged with experience.

The hands that “push him back into the sea” are possibly those of the people who rescued him from the original spill. Yet he remains unwilling to enter the sea again and stands protesting “in pained, silent expostulation.” This protest is based on his memory of the suffering which he experienced. His experience of the ocean has now changed from “sunlit, leaping smoothness” to

Oil on sea,
Green slicks, black lassos of sludge
Sleeving the breakers in a stain-spread scarf.

This “wisdom” which he has gained regarding the sea and humanity can be viewed as the penguin’s loss of innocence. The colon after “wise” suggests that as a consequence of the penguin’s wisdom, his relationship with the world around him has suffered.

The last lines of the poem include a biblical allusion to Jesus feeding the multitude with fish and bread. However, when the penguin now eats “fish from the Saviour’s hands,” he is not able to enjoy it as it was once created for him to enjoy. It now tastes “black” and polluted.

The tragedy of "Penguin on the Beach" is that through humanity’s pursuit of commercialized wealth, the penguin’s health and habitat suffer. The penguin is left to live a life filled with the knowledge that nothing and no one is to be trusted, as the water he once trusted betrayed him when it was polluted.

Ruth Miller, a poet that lived in South Africa, wrote "Penguin on the Beach" in the late 1960's. Tragedy and despair where always at the forefront of her life. She was abandoned by her father at an early age and her son died when he was a teenager.

Some say that this work is a tragedy because it is full of imagery that the poor penguin is facing, being stuck on a oil-slicked beach and facing his own mortality, and her own despairing circumstances of the death of her son and being raised father-less.

When the penguin "shudders from flinching waves" he is facing the scary reality of his situation. Miller also shudders from the reality of her own situation, the memory of the death of her son. It also has a religious undercurrent, some say she was aware of her own impending death. She died, I think, just a few years after the poem was written.