City Johannesburg - review

Authors Avatar

City Johannesburg

This poem City Johannesburg is about a man called Mongane Wally Serote. He wrote about his life during apartheid. He wrote this because one day he got arrested and was left in prison for nine months. When he was finally released he was very angry.  A couple of years later he wrote this poem.

In this poem Serote speaks of the difficulties created for black people by the law which required them to carry a pass at all times, it also speaks of restrictions it placed on black people.

We notice that at the beginning of the poem Serote speaks of life, but further down towards the end of the poem he talks about death. This is quite contrasting, as we notice that he compares the things he loves with death.  ‘When I go back to my dongas, my dust, my people, my death,’ this signifies that although he’s going back to the people and things he loves death is typified as being in a white supremacy, because the white people have the power and control over those less fortunate.  

Join now!

The poem is written as a narrative poem, irregular and only has one stanza. Some of the lines thought at the poem are short which provided impact.  I think that Serote wrote this poem in order to show people how the ethnic minority of that time were oppressed and the difficulties that they faced by their white counter parts.

Serote uses imagery to convey this for example he uses ‘I salute you’ this is very effective as the image that comes to mind when these words are said is his hand reaching to his head, this in ...

This is a preview of the whole essay