“Old Father feet begin to shift. His roots have no meaning now.”
The challenge that Island Man has to face is to go through each dull and boring day living in London while he is longing for his home in the Caribbean and all he can do is to dream about how beautiful it was and imagines himself there.
Two different Caribbean writers write these two poems. They both were in England while writing the poems. Both of the poems describe brief comparison and contrast between England and Caribbean culture.
‘Old Father’ and ‘Island man’ is about the passion of their heart. They both missing their country so badly and they are desperate to go back to their motherland.
Although ‘Old Father’ is more descriptive than ‘Island man’ two poets have explained successfully their wishes, reasons behind missing their country.
In ‘Old Father’ the narrator reports the dialect speech, we can see this in the quote,
“ ‘Man, a takkin’ ‘de nex’ boat back home’ ”
This conveys a sense of cultural difference. The poet used cultural dialect to empathise his roots. Text 2 ‘Island Man’ does not contain any examples of dialect; I think the poet has not included any examples of dialect because the Island Man is in a dreamlike state so there is no need to write any dialect speech.
Both poems talk about two cultures, two places which are the Caribbean and England. In Text 1, ‘Old Father’ opposes the Caribbean culture and describes English to be more favourable. We can see an example of Old Father rejecting his Caribbean culture in the quote,
“Don’t eat dasheen or yam ‘not very digestible’.” In this quote above we can see Old Father rejecting some of his traditional Caribbean food and making poor excuses not for eating it. Here are more examples of Old Father changing:
- ”Old father feet begin to shift”
- ”He don’t say “Hello” no more”
- ”Old father don’t want to know we know"
In text 1, ‘Old Father’ the poem is written more descriptive and manifestly than ‘Island Man’. He tries to bring different subjects to give a life to the poem. In the whole poem he mentioned the atmosphere in England for him and compared it to his own country. He has spent a lot of time in England but now he is dissatisfied and desperate to back to his motherland. In a short period of his life he tried to act like an English man. He tried to get habituated with the adjacent atmosphere and people. According to the poem some of his pretentious trying to be an English man is given bellow-
- “Never brunette” He doesn’t expect a woman with dark skin, hair and eyes.
- “And his suit, cream or beige” He wears suit like an English man wear.
- He use to make joke about black people and even he doesn’t like black people to serve his ordered foods in the pub.
- He doesn’t eat Caribbean food.
In text 2, ‘Island man’ is quite simple than ‘Old father’. The poem was written about a Caribbean Island man .The poet tried to explain his feelings compared with her. The subject of the poem is clear and not in euphemism way as ‘Old Father’.
The Caribbean island man can still hear the sound of his country sea and he can see the birds on the sky far away from his country. That makes him wake up from bed. And the man didn’t try to be an English man as Old father did. Grace Nichols didn’t compare her country to England.
The poem ‘Island Man’ deviates from standard punctuation such as commas, full stops, pause marks, question marks. The reason why the poet wrote this poem without standard punctuation was to make it easier to shape the pictures inside the reader’s head. And to make the poem seem flowing like fluid, and continuous and dreamy similar to the island mans state of mind, which is tired and dreamy. There is no punctuation in this dream-like world which island man is in. In the poem there is a line that says,
"He always comes back groggily groggily"
As he emerges from the groggness of his slumber, this is where he is finally coming out of his dream to a London morning, which he doesn’t want to do. He wants his mind to stay in the Caribbean. He doesn’t want to wake up to the "grey" metallic soar," and the sights of traffic jams. In the sixth stanza he has woken up and has put his pillow over his head to try and cover the noises of a London morning. We can see that poet applied onomatopoeia in the quote above with the use of the words “groggily groggily” and also from the poem “muffling muffling”. The use of onomatopoeia in this poem is to describe to the reader the sounds that are being produced.
In ‘Old Father’ although he tried to do everything like a white people, (British people) the white people are still saying,
“He’s an example to his people”.
Basically the poem is full of euphemism .I believe that the poet hasn’t meant what old father said. The word “example” suggests a model, but examples can be positive or negative. A positive example would be that the white people are saying that the other black people should be acting more civilised like Old Father. A negative example would by that the white people are saying that he is trying to somebody he is not which makes him an outcast.
The white people think that he is an example to his people because maybe they are uplifted with Old Fathers ability to change/adapt. In my opinion I think that the white people are not saying the quote above in a raciest manor and they are saying that he is a good example to his people (Afro-Caribbean).
The narrator of this poem believes that Old Father is a bad example to his people. I think that it is not right to change in this way to adapt to society because you should be proud of who you are no matter what your colour or religion is.
By reading both poems and analysing them carefully I can conclude that in ‘Old Father’ is better in the sense of language and themes. The poet has used a large range of language skills such as similes, alliteration and a good use of Caribbean dialect. The way the writer has structured out the poem is impressive because the first stanza shows and introduction, stanza two, three and four shows Old Father changing/adapting.
In ‘Island Man’ after reading the whole poem, I can sees that it is ambiguous - the island is both in the Caribbean and Great Britain. This poem neatly captures this division between a fantasy of the simple life and the working daily reality.