Closely analyse the poems 'Sacifice' by Taufiq Rafat and 'Out, Out' by Robert Frost. Explain what the poems tell us about the cultures from which they originate.

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Dean Lord 11SMC

Closely analyse the poems ‘Sacifice’ by Taufiq Rafat and ‘Out, Out’ by Robert Frost. Explain what the poems tell us about the cultures from which they originate.

        In preparation for this essay I read and analysed a series of poems. Some of these poems include ‘Tich Miller’ by Wendy Cope and ‘City Jungle’ by Pie Corbett. For the main part of the essay I read the two poems ‘Sacifice’ by Taufiq Rafat and ‘Out, Out’ by Robert Frost and found out, about the two different cultures. ‘Sacifice’ is about a goat being sacrificed when they are laying the foundations of a friend’s house, where as ‘Out, Out’ is about a boy having his hand chopped off by a buzz saw.

In class, as a group we took down notes about the two poems. I will now individually show my understanding of the two poems and write an analysis for them both.

        I will now analyse ‘Sacrifice’ by Taufiq Rafat. The poem is about laying the foundations of a house. To do this they have to perform a ritual. The ritual is that the owner of the house has to sacrifice a goat. In the first stanza we can see that the poet feels empathy for the goat as it says ‘I can feel its point on my throat’. It is suggesting that he has taken the persona of the goat and feels what it feels. This stanza is almost out of order, as the poet Rafat could have put line five ‘We are laying the foundations of a friend’s house’ as his first line. He could have done this deliberately because he wants to create effect and to catch the reader’s attention by having a strong first stanza with language like ‘geysers’. You can tell by the language of the poem that the person who is performing the sacrifice is disturbed and doesn’t want to kill the goat as it says ‘A hot sticky sweat breaks out on my body’. This line in the poem stands out for me because it creates a strong image in my mind and tells me exactly how he is felling towards the sacrifice.

        In the next stanza we find out that there is a group of people that are involved in laying the foundations of a friend’s house, as the sentence starts with ‘We are laying the foundations of a friend’s house’. By the words ‘a brief prayer’ and ‘we stand in a tight circle’ you can tell that the culture of the poem is a religious one and that they are also a close community by them all involved in a ritual also by them all laying the foundations of a friend’s house. The line ‘The heat, and the smell of blood make me dizzy’ tells you how this sacrifice is making him feel and once again it shows that he thinks this is uncivilized. I think that when it says the goat has a ‘civilized and patient look’ it makes me feel that the goat doesn’t deserve what is about to happen to it and they are going to kill it when he doesn’t expect it.

In the next stanza they are now performing the sacrifice of the goat. When the poet writes ‘Part of the ritual that it is his hand only’ it tells you that the person who has to kill the goat is the one who is having his house blessed. In the line ‘How keenly it cuts!’ the poet Rafat is showing that the goat cuts easily and that it is almost like the knife wants to kill the goat. I think that the explanation mark at the end shows the shock and the response of the poet. When the poet writes ‘The movement is a little unsteady’ this stands out for me because as well as him being nervous I would be too if I had to kill any animal. Also I think it is ironic that by him being nervous, because he doesn’t want to hurt the goat, he is actually causing the goat to feel more pain by not being steady. The word ‘butchering’ makes this sacrifice feel more unpleasant because butcher means they kill. ‘Four calloused hands imprison my jerking legs’ this tells us that they are working class people because calloused hands suggests that people work with their hands. Also by saying that the hands are calloused, which means harden, it could suggest that they have hard emotions to this sacrifice. Also with the words ‘jerking legs’ the poet is taken on the persona and empathy of the goat.

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        In the next stanza they have killed the goat and are now burying it. When Rafat writes ‘the children are fascinated by the tableau’ he is saying that the children might want to do this in the future and suggests that this culture could be passed through generations. The goat is forgotten about forever when it says ‘Two spadefuls of dirt will cover me up forever’ I feel that it is sad that some people would just kill an animal for their culture and just forget about it afterwards. When Rafat says ‘a white-bearded man chants something holly’ it is ...

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