Introduction
The Heaven of Animals from James Dickey’s 1962 anthology titled Drowning with Others is among the author’s most popular poems. Dickey masterly contrasts life and afterlife in the most vivid manner. The poem not only justifies the the natural order of violence and obviously sympathizes with the predatory species. The author emphasizes the peaceful co-existence of victimized animals and their role within the set social order. Although the narrative of Western literature presents death as a mournful and fearful substance, the author makes animals in The Heaven of Animals accept death peacefully as part of reported grand order that eventually saves them from finding their identities. The might of the poem is in its allusion to the harmony between predators and prey through which the author is building up the image of a ‘macho’ hunter.
General analysis
At the beginning of the poem, the author briefy introduces the animals without detailed specification. This makes readers The Heaven of Animals turn to the title and take it as a generalization for the key actors (animals). At that, Dickey presents an unusual vision of heaven in a dynamic rather than generally accepted static dimension. The idea of permanent change is evident from the first line “The soft eyes open” and the following stanzas. The poem’s speaker never mentions specific breeds of animals, save as line 11 that emphasizes individual animals arriving in heaven. The poem omits any specific details about the animals except that they have soft eyes.
The second stanza (lines 7-11) outlines the poem’s morale. The author challenges a philosophical dilemma: while the animals are soulless, the core issue is what goes to heaven aftermath the death. However, the assumptions that the animals are without souls does not comply with the rest of the poem. Supposedly, Dickey refers to the theological teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas who claimed that animals were soulless. Deprived of souls, Dickey also depicts animals as the creatures solely acting on their instinct. Nonetheless, the author grants them with heaven, which sounds impossible given their soulless nature. With “The soft eyes open,” the author makes us aware about the feelings of the animals while the word “soft” associates with kindness and “eyes open” with understanding and knowing to some extent.
The third stanza (lines 12-16) emphasizes on what the ‘animal’s heaven’ looks like. With “outdoing” Dickey stretches the previously mentioned concepts to the new heights. The “flowers” as a verb in line 12 outlines the author’s healthy language. With the word “desperate,” Dickey exaggerates the heaven as the paralleled dimension of their earthly existence.
Further stanza (involving lines 17-21) establishes the opulence and beauty of the setting with the introduction of a new notion that is ‘blood.’ Rather than emphasizing on the positivity of heaven, the new stanza contradicts the concepts related to heaven in previous lines. With “could not be the place / It is, without blood,” Dickey depicts heaven as a bloodless dimension full of peace and happiness. The desire for blood diminishes while predatory animals no longer need hunt prey. However the main question remains open while the notions of peace and perfect happiness contradict the predatory nature of animals.
Next goes stanza number five with lines 22-26. Here, the author makes a transition from predatory animals to the prey. Herewith, animals discover their heavenly skills. Those who managed to open their eyes start discovering the new ‘heavenly’ reality. The animals now feel silent and deadly while pushing newfound things to unearthly extremes.
The following lines 27-31 examine the happiness of the predatory animals and the satisfaction of their prey. Rather than killing his prey, Dickey states, it is much more pleasant to prolong of hunt and extract the pleasure from the very process. At that, the physical reality is different from the earthly one. The animals’ nature remains unchanged while they still live to kill and there is nothing else left to heaven but to satisfy their needs. Still the fate of the prey “their reward” remains unknown in this heavenly reality.
The last line 36 of the forthcoming stanza says “fulfilling themselves.” With that said, Dickey moralizes his concept of heaven claiming tha the act of victimization benefits the victim and completes its personality. Herewith, the author opposes the notion of “fulfillment” to the words “acceptance” and “compliance” in line 35. This means that the animals’ fulfillment is good for them while the author eliminates the atrocities of victimization. Dickey disfavors the adverse effects of fear and pain by rejecting them. Hence, the preyed animals find freedom from uncertainty in Dickey’s heaven. On the one hand the victims cannot escape their fate, though, on the other hand, they do not suffer from fear and pain, which makes their heavenly existence much better than the earthly one.
Finally, the closing lines 37-41 of the last stanza mythically refer to the cycle of life. The permanent rising of the preyed animals determines the essence of their heavenly existence. With every rising up again after being “killed,” they rise over and over again. Thus, the new rising always comes after the killing in heaven (Hathcock 52-55).
Conclusion
James Dickey refers to complex themes in his outstanding poem. He permanently seeks allusions and metaphors to surprise readers with unusual contradictions. By presenting animals as soulless creatures in heaven that is not indeed a harmonious environment. Give the animals’ earthly nature, the animals will continue hunting and chasing down their prey. This indicates that no harmony, fulfillment or happiness may ever change the predatory nature of the animals.
Simultaneously, the author describes the heaven as the place to live for the preyed animals as well. Referring to philosophical and theological readings in stanza 2, Dickey assumes that animals are unconscious and act solely on their inner instinct. Still, the author presents the heaven as a place of genuine happiness. Here, the preys are able to rise up from the death over and over again after they are killed by the predators. While the preyed animals are conscious of the necessity of being hunted, they are aware about the inevitability of their destiny. The benefit of such awareness turns their physical death only into a temporary state. Hence, only in Dickey’s heaven, the preyed animals are blessed with the feeling of eternity and that is what makes them forever happy notwithstanding the fact they are forever destined to be preyed.
This way, Dickey outlines the quality new dimension of happiness that is unreached even by people who live earthly lives. He blesses his animals with the gift of rising and therefore defeats physical death. While such a blessing is possible only in the author’s imagined heaven, the philosophical novelty underlines the depth of the author’s thought and the scope of his wide imagination. The parallels like these expand our thinking about the human and animal nature and the possible reality of life after death. At least, Dickey makes it clear for his animals notwithstanding whether they are predators or preys by nature.
- Hathcock, Nelson. “The Predator, the Prey, and the Poet in Dickey’s ‘Heaven of Animals,” in Concerning Poetry, Vol. 18, Nos. 1 and 2, 1985, pp. 47, 52–5.
