The dead crab summary and analysis

The Dead Crab

A rosy shield upon its back,

That not the hardest storm could crack,

From whose sharp edge projected out

Ban pin-point eyes staring about;

Beneath, the well-knit cote-armure

That gave to its weak belly power;

The clustered legs with plated joints

That ended in stiletto points;

The clas like mouths it held outside:-

I cannot think this creature died

By storm or fish or sea-fowl harmed

Walking the sea so heavily armed;

Or does it make for death to be

Oneself a living armoury?

The poem The Dead Crab by Andrew Young is a short and seemingly simple piece of work. However, its length and subject matter do not diminish the poem’s rich stylistic qualities.

In a general outline of the poem, it is a sonnet with an AABBCCDDEEFFGG rhyme scheme. From the first reading the reader can already discern the textual patterning of the poem. It is divided into two parts, which deviates from the conventional sonnet of 3 stanzas with four lines each and an ending couplet. The first part starts from line 1 to line 9, while the second part from line 10 to line 14. The first part is the persona’s physical description of the crab, but the second is his reflection of the subject. The Dead Crab also makes use of poetic license to make syntactic manipulation through the use of inversion, parallelism and principle of end-focus, as discussed later on.

The first part leaves little room for literary interpretation as it is a rather unambiguous description of the crab’s anatomy. However, stylistically, the persona leaves much room for analysis through his interesting choice of words and punctuation.

The first line alone is already foregrounded. The phrase rosy shield is prominent because these words do not belong in the same lexical set. The word rosy has feminine and gentle connotations, whereas shield is normally associated with the image of a strong object that protects one from danger. These two words matched together give quite a misleading idea of the crab; one may say it lulls the reader into having a certain presupposition or conjecture of how the poem would turn out as one reads on.

As one goes along, however, the innocuous image of the crab is dispelled through the use of words and adjectives that are more in contrast. Lines 1 and 2, when combined, give the impression of the crab shell’s durability, which the poet likens to a shield, a metal object that is almost indestructible by most elements. The persona puts further emphasis on the strength and hardness of the crab’s shell in Line 2 by saying that the shield of a crab shell is so tough that not even the hardest storm can crack it. The hardest storm, one might safely assume, would be able to destroy many things in its path, but here the poet asserts that it would not even crack the shell.

The crab’s physical description takes on a more menacing image from Lines 3 to 8. Words like sharp edge projected out, black pin-point eyes, cote-armure, power, plated joints and stiletto points may come very well under the semantic field of a soldier’s uniform. The reference to shield, cote armour, plated joints and stiletto points makes it rather evident that the persona likens the crab as being dressed for war like a soldier; indeed, he returns to that idea in the second half of the poem in Line 12, referring to the crab as “heavily armed.” The comparison reveals the extent of the creature’s power, danger and connotes a sense of invincibility.

However, there is an unusual prominence in Line 5, where the cote-armure is described as “well-knit.” Again, the occurrence of two lexically incompatible words happens; a semantic violation. The former is associated with soldiers and war, while the latter is associated with knitting and needlework. The persona refers to the physical characteristics of a crab’s underbelly that resembles a knitted item. Perhaps he is also referring to the image of a well-threaded, chain-linked yarn, crafted so that unravelling it would be almost impossible. Then, well-knit cote-armure would suggest that not only is the crab shell of unusual strength, but also of intricate craftsmanship by nature. The poet also employs an almost similar stylistic technique in Line 9, using a simile to liken the claws to mouths to note its physical resemblance.

What is interesting to observe is how the poet slickly cohere the words well-knit and stiletto. There are two denotations of the word “stiletto”. One is a noun that refers to a type of dagger with a blade that is thick in proportion to its width; this coheres with the lexical set of a soldier. The other is a verb that refers to action of a pointed instrument for making eyelet holes in needlework; this coheres with the adjective well-knit. The word stiletto here creatively functions as a lexical cohesion for two lexical sets used in the crab’s description by the persona. While before well-knit was foregrounded for being a semantic violation, stiletto now helps it to achieve lexical cohesion.

The first part of the poem produces three instances of linguistic exploitation. Line 2 has a syntactic manipulation through the inversion of the word not. It should be written as That the hardest storm could not crack. The poet’s inversion makes it clear that he uses linguistic exploitation for the purpose of stress, as his manipulation does make the line sound more emphatic. Line 6 shows another syntactic violation through the inversion of the word power. Syntactically, the line should be written as That gave power to its weak belly. However, the inversion makes the word power the emphasis of that line, employing the principle of end-focus. Line 9 is curiously missing two commas; the conventional syntactic structure would be The claws, like mouths, it held outside. Perhaps this is an exercise of poetic license?

In the second part of the poem, the tone changes. The use of I indicates the change from a tone of detached to personal, as well as the showing the poem’s segmentation from description to reflection. The poet uses syntactic manipulation for rhyming and emphasis reasons, in line 11 where grammatically it should be Harmed by storm or fish or sea-fowl. Again, he applies the principle of end-focus to this line. The inversion from front to the end of the line effectively shows the stress, especially when coupled with a corresponding rhyme in the next line. There is also a use of syntactic parallelism through the lexical repetition of the word or in Lines 11 and 13.

The persona has an interesting reflection in the poem’s second half. He affirms that the crab cannot have died in the hands of nature. It was not killed by a bird or fish or a storm, because of its powerful and deadly natural “armour.” The ending couplet is the most ambiguous of the poem, particularly due to the lexical contrasts in Line 13 and 14, which are death and living respectively. One interpretation of that is based on the irony of what protects you can also kill you. The persona is wondering if for all the protection the crab’s armour have provided, could it be that it is that very armour that killed it? Even he does not really know the answer, as he ends the couplet with a question mark.

The poem is highly cohesive in idea, form and sound. The cohesion in idea slightly intersects with the prior observation on textual patterning, where the overall presentational sequencing of the poem begins with the crab’s description, then tying in with the persona’s reflection of the crab at the end. The sequencing within the first part of the poem begins by describing the crab’s back, before moving on to its eyes and going below to its belly and limbs, where the legs are described first and the finally, the claws. Sequence in the poem’s second part is also very orderly. The persona eliminates the possible causes of the crab’s death methodically before ending with his own conclusion. Suffice to say that cohesion in idea is done in a very sensible order.

The form cohesion is found in rhyme. Despite the irregular segmentation of the poem – the first part of the poem ends at Line 9, the only unpaired line (in the first part of the poem) – the poet achieves unity in rhyme for Line 10 to cohere the two lines as well as making the shift from the persona’s description to reflection less detached as these two lines are paired in rhyme. The punctuation also helps in form cohesion. The separation of content is clear through the use of commas (to join Lines 1 & 2 together), semicolons (to cohere Lines 3 & 4; 5 & 6; 7 & 8; 10, 11 & 12; 13 & 14) and the question mark at the ending couplet. In Line 9 the punctuation is different from the others as it has a colon and a dash. This punctuation serves to make the transition of the two parts of the poem smoother, as it indicates that after the description of the crab, there is something else more important the persona wants to say.

Cohesion is not only achieved in idea and form, but also sound. The end syllables of each line are hard sounds phonetically (back & crack, out & about, armure & power, joints & points, outside & died, harmed & armed). The poet cleverly infuses cohesion not just between sound alone, but also coheres the lexical idea of the hardness and power of the crab by employing the phonetic equivalent through the choice of words with hard phonetic sounds. There are many instances of the use of plosive consonants at the end syllable of each line (back – crack, out – about, outside – died, harmed – armed), as well as fricative consonants (joints – points). While Lines 5 & 6 has a comparatively weak phonetic sound in comparison (armure – power), they instead become foregrounded in the midst of hard-sounding rhymes and that only serves to enhance the meaning of those lines. There is also another exception in the ending couplet (be & armoury) because they have a vowel end each. This causes the couplet to be foregrounded in speech because the poet intends to put emphasis on his reflection – after all, the whole raison d’être of the poem lies in the ending couplet.

The Dead Crab looks deceptively simple; it would not take much to understand the poem through literary analysis. However, one can only truly appreciate the ingenuity of the poem through thorough stylistic analysis.

تعليق

What would you compare the crab to…..for example a turtle or a bulldozer..??

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