“Well, I've heard of your conversation about us. News travels even among foxes, as you might know or not know.”
The poem opens with the speaker coming upon a fox enjoying the cool shade beneath a tree. It is clear from her greeting that she has encountered this fox before. The fox reacts with similar familiarity. He makes no effort to get away, showing no fear at all about the presence of the human being. This behavior perplexes the speaker who apparently has never come across a fox who did not scamper away upon noticing her presence. In response to her query about this bewildering reaction, the fox initiates conversation. Curiously enough, the speaker has no answer to the fact that the fox can speak at all, much less speak English. But that’s not important. The significance is not that the fox can talk, but the topic of his conversation: the speaker has managed to become something of a semi-legendary figure since their last brief encounter. In fact, one is forced to question whether he can talk at all or whether this entire conversation takes place entirely within the speaker’s imagination. In the actual printed text, this quote from the fox is presented without quotation marks and becomes simply part of the speaker’s narration. This will prove problematic.
“Some lady said to you, `The hunt is good for the fox.’
And you said, `Which fox?’"
The fox has already established why the speaker’s status among the fox community has become elevated. This is the part of the story which explains how this came about. This particular fox has heard through the fox grapevine the story about the speaker’s confrontation described here. Because she stood up for the existential right of foxes, the speaker is enjoying this rare distinction of having a conversation with the animal. Or is she? In this case, the actual published version of the poem puts quotation marks around both the unidentified lady’s remark and the speaker’s retort. There is no punctuation ambiguity at work here. The lady and the speaker are signified as having actually said the words quoted here. This stands in direct contrast to how the conversation between the speaker and the fox is presented. None of that conversation—on either side—includes quotation marks but instead is presented purely as a narrative rather than dialogue. This distinction assertively raises questions about whether this is intended to be an actual conversation—within the recognized fantasy of talking animals—or is it clearly designed as pure fantasy with no pretensions toward actually taking place.
“Your book! That was in my book, that's the difference
between us.”
Upon informing the speaker that he has heard the story of the speaker standing up for foxes in her confrontation with the woman, he lets her know he is appreciative by telling her that makes her “okay in my book.” The response by the speaker is just weird enough to raise further questions about the nature of the reality of this fantasy conversation. The exclamation point indicates true outrage on the part of the speaker toward the fox’s seeming complimentary comment. The speaker’s reaction is extreme enough to warrant the occasional use of this punctuation mark seems bizarre. Her jealous protection of her standing as an author and her subsequent use of this ability to create a divide between humans and animals also seems strangely out-of-sync. But there is something going on here that is easily overlooked: what she means by “That was in my book.” This assertion seems to be implying that the conversation referenced by the fox not only actually took place but wound up becoming a scene in a book written afterward. The oddness of her response to the fox about being okay in his book carries a vague undertone of outrage against plagiarism on the speaker's part. Vague though it may be, the undertone is strong enough to raise questions about whether this conversation is not just taking place inside the speaker’s mind, but that the fox is a symbolic stand-in for the actual object of her seemingly misplaced outrage.
