Robert Zallar: On "Hurt Hawks"
The portrayal of freedom thus presented a formidable challenge. To capture its elusive and dialectical character, to make it comprehensible not only to his own but to a later time, Jeffers had to find a formulation independent of the vagaries of historical fortune. He did so by juxtaposing man's situational freedom as a moral agent in the world with the unconditioned freedom suggested by certain aspects of natural process. In Jeffers' poetry birds of prey, particularly the hawk and the eagle, came to serve as emblems of such unconditioned freedom.