Deborah Macallister
October 18, 2014
ENC 1102
Mondays at 6:00 pm True Love, I Don’t Think So
When reading the poem “The Cow” by Andrew Hudgins the reader is drawn into the story of a boy and his love for the cow. At the beginning the persona portrays a boy’s true love for the cow or so we are lead to believe. As the reader moves through the poem it becomes apparent the love the boy feels for the cow is not a true love but one of materialistic value.
In the first stanza the persona is telling us how much he loves the cow. He opens with the line “I love the red cow / with all of my heart”. (lines 1-2) He appreciates how gentle she is while she is pulling the red cart. The mood is almost one of happiness and joy. This shows a certain affection…show more content… By saying they will “slit her red throat/hang her from a beam, / and pull out her insides / to throw to the dogs,” it almost seems as if the boy has no love at all for the cow (11-14). The way he describes the slaughter almost seems to be callous and unemotional. Over the years they have owned six cows and each one has had the same treatment. By this time the cow has become one of many. This is not unusual even in everyday life. My children’s grandmother raised cows and they all had names, but when the cows were of no use as far as what they could contribute, the cows were all slaughtered. He describes how they will “skin and dismember” the cow, then package and label it to store it in the freezer (20). The reader now sees the cow has truly become just a possession to him.
From the end of the sixth stanza into the seventh there is a mood of excitement and anticipation about eating the beefsteak. “We all love beefsteak / from baby to geezer!” gives the reader the impression that the whole family loves to eat the meat (23-24). The love he is talking about here seems to be completely a materialistic love. The persona conveys the impression he does not even see the meat as being the object of affection as in the first