Relic Summary and analysis

Ted Hughes expected the reader to find his or her own interpretation of his poetry and as such, his
subjects are sometimes difficult to follow. In Relic, he uses the sea, a long time fascination of his, to
make his point about the continuing cycle of life as "Time in the sea eats its tail."

The sea is significant in relation to the repeating pattern as the depths of it hold many unsolved
mysteries as mankind has yet to discover all that it holds where "The deeps are cold." The sea is also an
unfriendly place where survival is key and "In that darkness camaraderie does not hold" as creatures
prey on each other to survive.

The speaker is contemplating a bone that he has found and is led to wonder about any sea creature and
how it will "flap for half an hour and turn to a crust" as it dies and makes its contribution to "Continue
the beginning." In other words, life recycles and the sea can be proud of its " achievement" as life goes
on despite the destructive nature of the sea and the creatures within it as" Nothing touches but,
clutching, devours. "

The tone reveals that the sea is not a hospitable place and even the creatures that prey on other
creatures also become nothing more than "Jaws / Eat and are finished and the jawbone comes to the
beach" as they also become part of the recycling process.

The bones become representative of the sea itself as they serve as "a cenotaph" - a reminder, a
monument; just as a trophy reminds us of a noble animal which has served its purpose. It's as if the sea
is itself the predator as it " thrives," and makes use even of those seemingly useless creatures
"Indigestibles" and goes on, absorbing those "That failed far from the surface."

In this poem, the speaker looks at "relics" of life beneath the sea and thinks about what they mean,
concluding the world beneath the sea is a brutal, unforgiving joyless place.

In the first stanza, the speaker finds a "jawbone" tossed up from the sea onto the beach along with the
remains of dead crabs and dogfish. He comments that the sea is cold and unfriendly, a dog-eat-dog (or
fish-eat-fish) world.
In the second stanza, the speaker continues to dwell on what it is like under the sea. Down there, he
believes, one finds no compassion between creatures: sea animals only touch to gnaw and devour each
other. It is a brutal world, and the remains of its battles are cast on the seashore:

shells,

Verterbrae, claws, carapaces, skulls.

In stanza three, the theme of the harshness of the sea continues. The narrator states that the "failed"
are washed up—meanwhile, for those still down below, life is a struggle in which no creature gets rich or
laughs: everything is a fierce fight for survival.

Hughes’s key preoccupation in this poem is with the fact that everything touched by the sea—and, by
extension, by time—is “devour[ed].” The speaker illustrates this point by describing a jawbone he has
found: the type of bone is important, as it allows reference to the other “jaws” which have devoured,
over time, whatever animal this bone belonged to, leaving only this, the “indigestible” jaw, to be swept
up on the beach. The jawbone is the end of the process, but there are crabs and dogfish at its
“beginning,” reinforcing the fact that this process of devouring is endless and inexorable. The jawbone
never took any joy or sustenance from the sea, which offers no “camaraderie.” By contrast, it has been
torn apart until it can be broken down no more, and is now a memorial only, a “cenotaph” to whatever
animal once lived with it.