Compare Island Man and Limbo AQA Anthology

Authors Avatar

Compare And Contrast The Methods Used to portray Caribbean culture In “Limbo” by Edward Kamau Brathwaite And “Island Man” By Grace Nichols

There are lots of different methods used in the poems “Limbo” and “Island Man” which make these poems so amazing. I have collected together a few of them in order to understand the meaning in depth of the poems.

The most obvious similarity of this poem is that they are both about the Caribbean and they are both based around thoughts people are having at a certain time of day.

Limbo is about a man doing the limbo dance to get his body into shape. Island man is about a Caribbean man in London waking up, dreaming about still being in the Caribbean, where he really wants to be.

         The poem Limbo is quite a deep poem, it describing in detail two things… the action of the dance “limbo” and the history of the black slaves in the Caribbean. On the other hand, Island man is an easy, simple poem only describing the thoughts of an “Island Man”.        

Join now!

Both poets say the poem from somebody’s viewpoint. Brathwaite writes the poem’s viewpoint as the man, doing the limbo dance himself. It’s very personal and has all the details in of everything he’s thinking and doing at each stage of the dance. Nichols writes “Island Man” from the main persons viewpoint but in this poem, it doesn’t describe everything, she just writes what he’s thinking as he wakes up each morning.

In each poem, the Caribbean is described as different things… in Limbo the Caribbean is described as a place where slaves were used. In the actual poem, Brathwaite uses ...

This is a preview of the whole essay