Refugee Mother and Child is a poem that seems to be written to arouse
response from the reader. The pitiful image of a mother holding the
corpse of her son is not only sourcing empathy from the reader but
also helps the reader reflect on their own fortunate lives. In fact,
Chinua Achebe is a leading writer for African causes, especially for
the injustices in the world.
The first stanza seems to be written as an introduction to the
following stanza. The poet begins by allowing the reader to visualize
the –
“Picture of a mother’s tenderness
for a son she soon would have to forget.”
This immediately conveys the theme of ‘death of a child’ and also
helps set the ‘sorrowful’ mood of the poem. The short introduction
allows the reader to settle them down and focus more on the tragic
scene, thus maximizing the response from the reader.
Following the ‘theme’ and ‘mood’ set by the first stanza, the second
stanza described the living environment of the “Refugee Mother and
Child” as –
“The air was heavy with odours
of diarrhoea of unwashed children
with washed-out ribs and dried-up
bottoms struggling in laboured
steps behind blown empty bellies”
The filthy image of the environment that the mother and child lived in
is projected through negative connotation. For example, the words
‘odours’ and ‘diarrhoea’ suggests the presence of diseases and
sicknesses. This allows the reader to imagine a smelly and filthy
place crammed with ill people. The reference to illness, which seems
to be a link with the theme of ‘death’, foreshadows the tragic story
of the mother and her dead son although it has not been clearly stated
that her son is dead.
Furthermore, the grotesque image of the setting is strongly reinforced
by the mentioning of “unwashed children with washed out ribs…” Chinua
uses the children as a clear symbol of innocence and the unfortunate,
as the children has been given birth in places where vital resources
such as water and food are lacking. This will naturally allow the
reader to reflect on their own fortunate lives and raise awareness of
these unfortunate children living in famines. The words ‘laboured
steps’ also suggests child labour, linking to real cases in lesser
economically countries such as Africa, China and Algeria.
As the second stanza continues, the constant reference to death is
evident when the poet describes the –
“ghost smile between” the mother’s “teeth and in her eyes the ghost of
a mother’s pride.”
The careful choice of the technique, personification, enables the
reader to visualize the emptiness of the mother’s smile and spirit, by
comparing the nouns ‘smile’ and ‘eyes’ with ‘ghost’, which
communicates the idea of death.
This poem captures the immigrant experience between the two worlds, leaving the homeland and towards the new world. The poet has deliberately structured the poem in five sections each with a number of stanzas to divide the different stages of the physical voyage. Section one describes the refugees, two briefly deals with their reason for the exodus, three emphasises their former oppression, fourth section is about the healing effect of the voyage and the concluding section deals with the awakening of hope. This restructuring allows the poet to focus on the emotional and physical impact of the journey.
Fear is a feeling no one wants to admit they have. A young child, though, will say what they are afraid of, but as one gets older the more they want to be looked as a tough person. Zack Wamp puts it perfectly, no one should be scared or afraid to go into the future, but yet be intrigued into stepping into a new light of knowledge and learning. In Chinua Achebe's book Things Fall Apart he shows the Ibo people and their fear, superstition, response to fear and the British.
The fictional novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is about Okonkwo and his Ibo tribe, Umuofia, known now as Nigeria. This novel describes the beginning of the colonial transformation of traditional society seen in a political, economical and in a socio-cultural form. Furthermore, in this fictional story, the colonization process can be represented as it was used during the scramble for Africa, which took place in the late 19th and early 20th century (Akram-Lodhi, Colonization); back in that time colonization was justified. However, modern analysis have had demonstrate that the scramble for Africa was a colonial and imperialistic practice, these views helped to facilitate the end of colonization that began around 1950 (Hobsbawm 217). Although,
This darkly satiric poem is about cultural imperialism. Dawe uses an extended metaphor: the mother is America and the child represents a younger, developing nation, which is slowly being imbued with American value systems. The figure of a mother becomes synonymous with the United States. Even this most basic of human relationships has been perverted by the consumer culture. The poem begins with the seemingly positive statement of fact 'She loves him ...’. The punctuation however creates a feeling of unease, that all is not as it seems, that there is a subtext that qualifies this apparently natural emotional attachment. From the outset it is established that the child has no real choice, that he must accept the 'beneficence of that motherhood', that the nature of relationships will always be one where the more powerful figure exerts control over the less developed, weaker being. The verb 'beamed' suggests powerful sunlight, the emotional power of the dominant person: the mother. The stanza concludes with a rhetorical question, as if undeniably the child must accept the mother's gift of love. Dawe then moves on to examine the nature of that form of maternal love. The second stanza deals with the way that the mother comforts the child, 'Shoosh ... shoosh ... whenever a vague passing spasm of loss troubles him'. The alliterative description of her 'fat friendly features' suggests comfort and warmth. In this world pain is repressed, real emotion pacified, in order to maintain the illusion that the world is perfect. One must not question the wisdom of the omnipotent mother figure. The phrase 'She loves him...' is repeated. This action of loving is seen as protecting, insulating the child. In much the same way our consumer cultur...
The poem begins with a childlike tone, misleading the reader on the upcoming subject matter. The first line echoes a nursery rhyme, feeling like a charm against some brooding curse. “You do not do, you do not do/ anymore black shoe” (lines 1-2). Metaphorically, the shoe is a trap, smothering the foot. The adjective “black” suggests the idea of death, thus it can relate to a coffin. The speaker feels a submissiveness and entrapment by her father. In an attempt to rid herself of the restriction in her own life, she must destroy the memory of her father. “Daddy, I have to kill you” (line 3). However, the description of the father as “marble-heavy” and “ghastly statue” reveals the ambivalence of her attitude, for he is also associated with the beauty of the sea. The speaker reacts with hate to her father who had made her suffer by dying at such a point in her development.
A controversial discussion of child neglect has erupted within many writers, scholars, and social workers. This discussion has collided many individuals to bring up certain details to defend their position. Child neglect has become a discussion within many due to the accuracy its long term effect has on children. Many indigenous people say that child neglect can be forgotten with time, while others believe child neglect can never be forgotten, and can create a scared,dramatic trauma to the future of the child. What hasn't been brought into discussion is the physical and emotional pain brought upon a child due to neglect. Within these individuals their are some who express there opinions through writing besides verbally accessing the discussion. However, the only way to truly understand the emotional aspect of a child neglect would be from a perspective of those who have been neglected themselves, or those who have witnesses it. What is the actual definition of child neglect and what are the emotions the child goes through afterward? The contemporary cultural issue of child neglect can be analyzed with the works of Sylvia Plath's “Daddy” and Joyce Carol Oates “When I Was A Little Girl and My Mother Didn't Want Me”, to unravel the true definition of child neglect and the permanent effect of emotional scars left caused by the neglect. These works provide readers with the negative impacts of emotional child neglect and how their character's invisible scars are able to be identified by others.
The poem uses many literary devices to enhance the meaning the words provide. The poem starts at the beginning of the story as the moon comes to visit the forge. The moon is said to be wearing “her skirt of white, fragrant flowers” (Lorca 2) as its bright light penetrates the scene. The poem states “the young boy watches her, watches. / The young boy is watching her” (3-4). The repetition of the phrase emphasizes the young boy’s infatuation with the moon. The scene is set with intensity by the phrase “electrified air” (5) and a tense feeling is brought into the poem. As “the moon moves her arms” (6), she is given traits of being alive and having her own human qualities. Personification of the moon into a woman exemplifies the desire that the child would have for the woman, and creates a more appealing form for the moon to appear as. The child cries, “flee, moon, moon, moon” (9) with urgency, showing his concern for her. He warns her “they would make with your heart / white necklaces and rings” (11-12). This refers back to the metaphor that the moon is made of hard tin, but still personifies her by giving her a heart. The moon is additionally personified when she says “ young boy, leave me to dance”(13). She has now taken the form of a sensual and erotic gypsy dancer furthering the desire of the young boy. This brings Spanish culture to the poem because gypsies are known to travel throughout Spain. The mo...
Set in Africa in the 1890s, Chinua Achebe's ‘Things Fall Apart’ is about the tragedy of Okonkwo during the time Christian missionaries arrived and polluted the culture and traditions of many African tribes. Okonkwo is a self-made man who values culture, tradition, and, above all else, masculinity. Okonkwo’s attachment to the Igbo culture and tradition, and his own extreme emphasis on manliness, is the cause of his fall from grace and eventual death.
Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is set towards the offset of the 1800s. The protagonist goes by the name Okonkwo. He has lived all his life resenting the poverty that his father represented and the man he was. In his adult life, Okonkwo becomes, extremely wealthy, but is strict and withdrawn from his wives and children. He commits a crime by killing a boy who was under his care during the non – violence week of peace. As a result, he is banished from the community. During the period of exile, white missionaries come to his village and spread the Christian gospel. Okonkwo is shocked by this conversion upon his return because his son is amongst those that were converted (Achebe, 179). Okonkwo constantly battles with the missionaries to the point where he murders one of them. His struggle with all the mixed emotions he goes through causes him to take his own life.
In the poem Refugee mother and child written by Chinua Achebe and Refugees written by Kapka Kassabova, an important idea of loss is conveyed by using interesting language techniques such as simile, alliteration and metaphor. They both link to the idea of the abstract loss and Achebe, itself, links to physical loss.
Chinua Achebe is a renowned Nigeria novelist lauded for his work in literature. Chinua Achebe has been credited with numerous works of literature ranging from novels to journals. His work cuts across borders, making huge success and accepted globally in the world of literature. Even critics had to accept Chinua Achebe is the greatest our time, such was Charles H Rowell a literary critic issued in Callaloo a reputable magazine. There was no surprise when Chinua Achebe won the 1972 Commonwealth prize, he obviously deserved it, following his contribution to the world of literature. He has also been awarded an indefinite number of doctorates in various educational
For this assignment, I chose the poem "The Mother" by Gwendolyn Brooks. This poem is generally about abortion and the feelings a mother has. It's about the remembrance of the children aborted and the little things children do that the mother will miss. Many images are conveyed throughout this entire poem. When Brooks mentions "the singers and workers that never handled the air" it gives off an air of sadness. You get the feeling that Brooks is trying to convey, to the mother, a sense of longing for those little things mothers are know to be good at. This is shown in the line, "you will never wind up the sucking thumb or scuttle off ghosts that come" .Then when she starts to address the child saying, "you were born, you had a body, you died." its hard not to feel some sadness or even a feeling of injustice.
The character of Okonkwo in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart was driven by fear, a fear of change and losing his self-worth. He needed the village of Umuofia, his home, to remain untouched by time and progress because its system and structure were the measures by which he assigned worth and meaning in his own life. Okonkwo required this external order because of his childhood and a strained relationship with his father, which was also the root of his fears and subsequent drive for success. When the structure of Umuofia changed, as happens in society, Okonkwo was unable to adapt his methods of self-evaluation and ways of functioning in the world; the life he was determined to live could not survive a new environment and collapsed around him.
n his delineation of the defining factors of a tragic hero, Aristotle drew on the archetypes established in Greek tragedies by such masters as Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Because this type of hero occurred often, and these three great tragedians ' works served as a basis for later writers, the archetype persisted in European literature, as evidenced in works by authors such as Shakespeare. A major question that arises, then, is whether the tragic hero is a purely European archetype, perpetuated as a result of prominent Greek tragedies, or whether he occurs throughout all human culture and was captured by the Greeks in an example of a universally human character. The main character of Chinua Achebe 's novel Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo, offers a potential solution for this dilemma, given both his and Achebe 's Nigerian nationality. Despite the tragic elements of his story, however,
The novel "Things Fall Apart" was set in the southeastern part of Nigeria where most Igbo’s live. I remember when I first saw the Novel "Things fall apart." I read the plot summary a sentence which, mislead me was "it is the story of a "strong" man whose life is dominated by fear and anger." I concluded this story is just going to be about a man who was like the James bond of his town. I read the content of the book and found out I was totally wrong. The author gave full insight to the readers which helps to unravel the culture of the Igbo’s and how the land of Umuofia was during the anti colonial era. The book focus on so many things but the main things are Gender,Culture and Religion. I always wanted to know what inspired Chinua Achebe