The Octopus - Analysis

A Riddle That Turns into a Joke About Identity

Ogden Nash’s poem is a tiny comedy that uses the octopus’s body to poke at a bigger problem: how language fails when a creature won’t fit our categories. The speaker begins with a direct, almost childlike question—Is those things arms or is they legs?—and the grammar is intentionally “wrong” in a way that matches the confusion. The octopus isn’t just hard to classify; it makes the speaker’s sentence fall apart as he tries to pin it down.

From Bewilderment to Admiration

Midway, the tone tilts from puzzlement into delighted respect: I marvel at thee. That mock-heroic O Octopus and the formal thee inflate the creature into something almost mythic, even while the speaker keeps his folksy voice (I begs). The tension here is funny but real: the poem both elevates the octopus and refuses to stop treating it as a linguistic prank.

I’d call me Us: One Body, Many Selves

The final line lands the poem’s central claim: if you have eight limbs, the singular I feels inadequate. If I were thou suggests a thought experiment in selfhood, and the punchline—I’d call me Us—turns anatomy into identity. The octopus becomes a rebuttal to tidy singularity: one creature, but “many” enough to make the speaker imagine a plural self.