The Famous Tay Whale Poem Analysis

In the news report ‘It’s the Wild West out here:’Gulf Islanders raise alarm over too many whale-watching boats by CBC in 2018, and in the poem The Famous Tay Whale written in 1883 by McGonagall, the human-animal relationship has evolved from In the news report, ‘It’s the Wild West out here:’Gulf Islanders raise alarm over too many whale-watching boats by CBC in 2018, and in the poem The Famous Tay Whale written in 1883 by McGonagall, the human-animal relationship has evolved from disrespecting and fearing the whales to establish rules to protect them. Despite that, in both articles, they all still treated whales as a tourist attraction as a way to gain self-interest. In The Famous Tay Whale, the narrator described the whale as an ugly monster, "So the monster…with one lash of its ugly and mighty tail".(McGonagall). In this quote, the narrator …show more content…
The word monster is connoted with a meaning of vicious and frightening. As a result, the people in Dundee felt that this Tay Whale was intimidating. By associating this feeling to this whale, it is evident to see that the people disliked this whale and felt isolated emotionally with this whale since they were afraid of it. This idea can also be seen in the use of the pronoun "it" to represent the whale, "To see it lashing the water with its tail all its might"(McGonagall). By using "it", it created an idea that the people consider the whale as an object rather than an animal that had feeling. This further eliminated the emotional connection between the whale and the public. By contrast, in the news report by CBC, it is demonstrated that whales are very respected that even people are establishing regulations to help them, " [U]se smaller boats, less frequently…They’re not going to have a business…unless they do