The Gnu — Summary

Samuel Hoffenstein’s “The Gnu” is a playful piece of light verse that starts with a mock-scientific observation: the gnu is a remarkable animal. Almost immediately, the joke flips. If the gnu looks odd to us, we must look just as odd to the gnu. The speaker cheerfully admits that even he would puzzle the creature’s “peculiar eye,” then widens the point to everyone: “There’s something wrong with all of us.” The final line brings in the hippopotamus as a comic authority, as if that animal could settle who is normal. The mood is gentle, wry, and a little absurd, but there is a real truth underneath—oddness is mutual, and nobody is in a position to feel superior. The forced, split rhymes like “remark-a-bul” and “ani-mul” add a clumsy, self-mocking charm that suits the speaker’s good-natured humility.