The poem Thistles by Ted Hughes is a poem about the futility and eternal resurgence of violence. It parallels violence between people to thorns and nature. The nature images shows violence as a natural and unavoidable part of life. It shows the inherent difficulties of the coexistence of opposing forces. In the real world, it is the forces of warring people wanting a piece of land. In the poem, it is the thistles trying to reclaim the land.
In the second paragraph, the narrator says: “Every one a revengeful burst of resurrection.” The word “revengeful” signifies a kind of vendetta the thistles have against “cows and the hoeing hands of men (Line 1).” It says that each thistle carries aggression towards us. The “burst of resurrection” description gives the sense that the struggle is eternal. And since there is no recollection of the origin of the hostility, and only descriptions of current hostility, it gives the sense that the motivation behind the fighting has been lost, or that the thistles and the people have become so entrenched in their battle that the enemy, not the origin, is the only thing important about the fight.
In the fourth stanza, the narrator begins to compare the thistles to men by saying they “grow grey.” Then they are “mown down,” which is an interesting use of the word mown, which has connotations in both war and gardening. He also calls it a “feud,” implying that the aggression is mutual. The mowers aggress against the thistles and the thistles retaliate. It is a juxtaposition of roles. In the beginning of the poem, the thistles seemed to be attacking people for no reason. But now the reader knows it is a feud. And in this case, the thistles are the victim. Then, the narrator says the war starts over when the next season starts.
This poem shows the futility of turf violence. The continual cycle of feuds and wars continues through generations, evidenced by the final two lines of the poem, “their sons appear, stiff with weapons, fighting back over the same ground.” Then going back to the second stanza with the description of the “revengeful burst,” and the feud description shows that the fighting isn't even exactly over the land anymore. It is a fight of revenge. Like the Hatfields and McCoys of Americana, the feud has changed. The original motivation for the fighting has disappeared. Now the fighting is vengeance from all the fighting.
