Foxy Lady

In Margret Atwood’s “Red Fox” the use of visual imagery, conceit and the diction of the words used comments on the desperation and the limits that humans will go to to preserve themselves and their futures.
The conceit of the red fox, which symbolizes human desperation and selfishness is the vehicle through which the meaning and intent of this poem is communicated. This poem focuses on this fox and in the third and most descriptive stanza of this poem Atwood describes this creature as having eyes filled with longing and desperation and also as having skinny feet which are adept at lies. These descriptors further the idea that this fox is human desperation because eyes are usually thought to reveal a person’s true purpose and by having eyes filled with desperation Atwood is suggesting that this animal is willing to do anything to survive due to the fact that it is so emaciated, “I can see the ribs” and is in dire need of sustenance. Also the description of the fox is also important in that Atwood speaks about the legs of the fox and we as humans and animals in general see our legs as a means to an end. A treacherous and dishonest past is implied through the line “skinny feet, adept at lies” this also furthers the idea that this animal is willing to do anything to get what it wants whether honestly or otherwise.
The rhetorical question that makes up the fourth stanza as well as the fifth stanza and the allusion presented there also contribute to this theme of human ambition and recklessness for a cause in that it challenges the implicit Christian belief of poverty being virtuous and presents it as a form of selfishness and self-neglect. The emaciated image of the fox is referred to in these sections as the speaker analyzes the effect that this hunger has on animals and people alike. The use of the phrase “hunger corrupts” suggests that this virtuous poverty creates a paradoxical circumstance in which this virtuosity leads to immorality and people committing evil or corrupt acts. Also the allusion the story of Hansel and Gretel in the forest illustrates that the corruptive powers of hunger are also seen in humans in that parents who were so hungry were forced to abandon their children.
Atwood, through this conceit of a simple red fox, comments on the animalistic nature of humans when faced with the most primal of situations: survival and self-preservation.