Now for the difficult information, what are the poems about?! I believe that both of the poems are linked, to me, both of the poems show a man’s/women’s struggle to stand up to what they believe in, when sometimes they don’t even know what that is! I think that the poem Half-Caste is about being open-minded. John Agard constantly ridicules
the audience logically to get through to them. Basically he’s saying ‘should Picasso be seen as second best just because he mixes colours in his paintings?’ ‘Should the English weather be looked upon disrespectfully just because it has a variety of moods?’ ‘Should Tchaikovsky’s music be seen as inferior just because he uses both the black keys with white keys on the piano? And most importantly ‘is someone who is called half-cast only half a person? Overall John Agard is asking the audience to think in a more open-mindedly way. Search for my Tongue on the other hand, I believe, is about finding time to accommodate two cultures, in a way I think she HAD to write this poem, just to clarify to herself that her ‘mother tongue’ will always be with her no matter what, in the first stanza Sujata Bhatt explains how difficult it is to speak and think in two languages. Throughout the poem she is questioning whether or not eventually she will completely forget the language she began with, however we learn that the ‘mother tongue’ stays with her in her dreams, by the end of the poem she has finally put her mind to rest and is confident that her ‘mother tongue’ will always be a part of who she is.
From studying both of the poems closely I have got some quite distinct images, for instance; line 4 of Search for my Tongue she describes speaking two languages is like having two tongues in your mouth, also Sujata Bhatt compares her tongue to a plant, as she develops her ideas, this is called an ‘extended metaphor’. She uses some very strong words to get her message across, for example; she says if she gave up speaking her ‘mother tongue’ it would rot and die but then she has a sudden change of heart and decides that it will grow back with even stronger veins, which I believe in this poem actually refers to the roots of the plant and therefore her routes in life. To fully understand this poem we have to understand why she has chosen to compare her tongue to a plant, personally, I believe she has chosen this because if not properly looked after plants can die and I think that somehow this is the message she is trying to get across. Some of the imagery, to me, is quite startling, for instance when she imagines her ‘mother tongue’ dying and her new ‘foreign tongue’ taking over I feel a sense of shock and guilt until in her dreams the ‘mother tongue’ grows back, like a plant that seems to have died but then starts to bud and grow strong and beautiful (blossoms) again. By the end of this poem our feelings have been greatly affected and we begin to look and our language in a more grateful way. In the way that she constantly argues with herself this poem, in my opinion is a good example of culture being seen as something to fight with. John Agard uses similar techniques to put some shocking pictures into the audiences’ head, such as Tchaikovsky playing the piano without mixing white and black keys, Picasso painting a picture without mixing colours together and the English weather being completely the same every single day, to me these pictures are impossible to imagine and therefore shock the audience into waking up and realising how ridiculous any of these situations would be. There are other parts to the poem that have the same effect, for instance; how can anyone only close half an eye when they sleep, only dream half a dream or cast only half a shadow? The imagery in this poem is uncomfortably unreal and therefore the audience are forced to listen, to me the way John Agard talks to the audience could be seen as aggressive and therefore could give the wrong impression about what he is trying to say.
The structures of both of the poems are quite similar, for example; both poems use phonetic language, which means they are both written in the authors own dialect/language, this can seem threatening to the audience as they may find it hard to understand just what the poet is saying and therefore feel uneasy. In Half-Caste the poem is written in 5 stanzas of varying lengths, the lines in the poem are short, I get the impression this is the really get his message across. The use of language in this poem works extremely well because it shows us he’s not afraid of what anyone thinks about him or his culture, we could see this as something to fight about. In Search for my Tongue the poem is written in 3 sections, the poet expresses how hard it is for her to know two languages but neglect the one that she feels most belongs to her, she also explains these ideas in Gujarati, which she then translates into English for us, so lines 31-38 are roughly the same as lines 17-30, altogether she is showing us that her ‘mother tongue’ dies during the day and grows back in her dreams at night, becoming stronger. It seems to me as though the author is fighting with herself, she seems unsure of what she wants and is using this poem as an excuse to get everything of her chest.
Both poems use very different language to get their point across, Half-Caste for example, uses repetition of certain phrases to strengthen the impact of his argument. The poem relies on comparisons to make us see how stupid it is to judge things that are in contrasting colours as only half worthy, he has a great affect on the audience by relating to issues in which they can to relate. John Agard is very clever in the way he makes us understand what he is trying to say, for instance, he uses the word ‘overcast’ when referring to the English weather, I believe he had an alternative motive in using this word as it sounds a lot like ‘half cast’ and yet has a completely different meaning altogether. Also in his poem there is a sense of humour, which I find very necessary, it lures the audience into a false sense of security before getting a huge earful about how narrow-minded they are being towards anything that they see as ‘different’. As you can quite blatantly tell he is, in a way, arguing with the audience and causing a fight. The poet has decided not to use ‘standard English’ in this poem and he doesn’t use the standard form of punctuation either. I believe this is partly because this poem is supposed to be read aloud. He says “Sometimes I think no punctuation can be effective because the words are floating in space, it gives the reader a chance to punctuate with their own breath”, he also uses ‘lower case’ where standard English would se capitals, even proper names such as Picasso and Tchaikovsky are written in this way, I believe this makes the audience feel dumb, as if, if he wrote it out in standard English the audience would not be able to understand. Also quite obviously he writes in a Caribbean dialect, using ‘yu’ instead of ‘you’ this is because as I have already mentioned he is not afraid of speaking out his culture and he doesn’t care what anyone else thinks about him. If this poem was to be read out loud I would read it in an angry tone, this to me is evidence enough that in this case we can see language as something to fight against. Search for my Tongue uses a little less language to get the main point of the poem across, although she uses a multiple of meanings for the word ‘tongue’ such as ‘ the part of your body that you use to speak’, ‘the language that you speak’ and the phrase ‘lost your tongue’ is used in a colloquial sense to mean that someone is tongue-tied and does not know what to say. All of these meanings all relate to the way Sujata Bhatt is feeling, once again in the poem she seems to be arguing with herself, as if both cultures are taking over her whole body.
Everything the poet is writing about, in my opinion, sums up their life. John Agard is writing to get through to people that they are wrong about him and his race, its as if he’s trying to say ‘open your eyes’, ‘look closer and you might actually see ME!’ The preliminary research I did at the very start of this essay told us about John’s life and his love for his culture and I believe this poem is living proof of that love and that ambition to get others to see his life as he does. The same goes for Sujata Bhatt, from birth she has been constantly travelling unable to find the language that best suits her, in her poem she finally decides that whatever language she chooses her ‘mother tongue’ will be with her forever.
Which finally brings me back to me original question… ‘In poems from other cultures, how could we see language as something to fight with and against? If my essay has explained anything it’s that culture will always be an OPINIONATED subject and therefore everyone has their different views on what is right and what is wrong, therefore culture will always be seen as something to fight with and against. But focusing on the two poems I have chosen to write about both have very different ways of fighting with language. John Agard for instance, he has chosen to talk about his culture in an aggressive manner, throughout the poem he is constantly taunting and ridiculing his audience, so in this case I believe John Agard uses culture as something to fight against. Sujata Bhatt consequently does exactly the opposite, from what I could comprehend it seems to me that see is fighting with herself, questioning herself about every little detail, her tone is less aggressive and more worried and therefore she seems to be contradicting herself a lot at the start of the poem. Overall though she seems to come to a conclusion but all of the time she has been fighting with culture. The language in Half-Caste is being used to fight racists, we can tell that John Agard is not happy with the way he is being looked upon and therefore takes matters into his own hands. Sujata Bhatt on the other hand is fighting the voices in her head that are telling her that she cannot be part of two cultures and that she cannot speak two languages, by the end of the poem though she seems to have won the fight.
In conclusion, everyone looks upon culture differently; there are those who take it seriously and those that don’t. But whether or not we like it we are all part of a culture and should therefore respect other’s. Of course culture can be seen as something to fight with, there are so many people in the world with different views it would be surprising if it wasn’t! In my opinion both authors use language as something to fight with and against in their own unique ways. Both of these poems use some sort of violence to get a message across, this to me is a type of fighting, so the answer to my question is ‘YES’ we could see culture as something to fight with or against because of the language both poems use, for instance the taunting that John Agard uses and the metaphors that Sujata Bhatt uses.
