In both Hurricane Hits England and Search For My Tongue, the poems explore the theme of culture being important to person, both poems approach this theme in different ways.

Craig Poku

Compare how a person’s culture is shown to be important in “Hurricane Hits England” and in one other poem.

In both “Hurricane Hits England” and “Search For My Tongue”, the poems explore the theme of culture being important to person, both poems approach this theme in different ways. In “Hurricane Hits England”, the poet uses the method of flashbacks to explore the theme, whereas “Search For My Tongue” approaches this theme by putting us in the author’s shoes.

In “Hurricane Hits England”, the subject matter is based around the serious hurricane that hit Southern England 1987. This is a very rare life force that is unusual in this country, more frequently occurring in the Caribbean. This storm in England reminds Nichols about her culture and this life force has been able to “break the frozen lake” within her. This shows us, the reader her culture is important to her, by creating a fusion of human life and natural life forces; “Talk to me Huracan…Talk to me Shango”. These “gods” that she is calling out to us the reader, makes us also think that she is trying to create a chant as if she sees the hurricane as both “Fearful and reassuring”. Although she is happy that the hurricane has come for it has been able to help her discover her culture again, she is also reminded about what damage this ‘life force’ can do to a country, physically and emotionally.

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The poet is using this event in England to help call her “back-home cousin”. This is another reminder to us the reader that she wants this occasion to be a flashback of what would have happened if she was in the Caribbean. However, she knows that this is not the same as the storms in the Caribbean, as the trees are “falling heavy as whales”. This simile is used to represent the different types of ecosystems around the world, how different trees have different properties. If you go to the Caribbean, the types of trees are mainly palm trees, with the properties of having flexible bark. However, in England the types of trees are Oak and Pine which are quite heavy and inflexible. This makes the trees unsuitable for this type of weather, making this experience still remind the poet about her culture, but seeing this weather as a new experience.

In “Search For My Tongue”, the way the poets shows us how culture is important to her is done in different ways, by showing us how it is to be in another country and not be able to express your “mother tongue”. In this poem, she describes how she is scared of loosing her “mother tongue”, how it would “rot” and she will have to “spit it out”. This demonstrates how her language is a very important part of her culture and heritage and during the first stanza in the poem; the use of botanical imagery shows a mood of death and decay. She explains how she could not create a hybrid tongue, the use of both languages; “You could not use them both together”. This botanical imagery is then used to help the re-growth of her mother tongue while she is having a dream; “munay hutoo kay…” The way how she portrays this stanza of the poem, not only gives the impression of her doing a chant but also had a lyrical feeling towards it. This is then an awakening for her mother tongue to “grow”, thus rediscovering language and culture is obviously important to the poet.

The final stanza is probably the most enlightening and meaningful stanza in the entire poem, for it finally concludes how culture can be extremely important to people and make them the way they are; “the bud opens in my mouth”. The use of botanical imagery has now been used to firstly represent death and decay, to now being represent growth and re-birth. This use of assonance in the last stanza also helps to change the mood of the entire poem, giving it a more positive feel to the poem; “blossoms out of my mouth”. This line not only tells us that she is happy with the culture that she has re-discovered, but it also means that she has found the item that she had lost; her tongue. We know this from the title of the poem “Search For My Tongue”.

In conclusion, both of these poems have been able to show how a past culture can be important to a person’s character and future growth. This could teach all of us a moral lesson, by telling us that culture is important to everybody’s feeling of self by making it mould our characters to what we are today. In both these poems, they might have used different methods to portray these themes, with the outcome giving off the same message.

Peer Reviews

Here's what a star student thought of this essay

sydneyhopcroft

14th of Apr 2012

Quality of writing

The Quality of Written Communication is fair, though it appears that there are some typos that have made it passed the candidates spell/grammar checks. Whilst they do not compromise the clarity of what the candidate is trying to say does not reflect entirely well on such a good answer when there is frequent misuses of grammar (granted, they are accidental, but are easily rectified with a simple proof-read).

Level of analysis

The level of Analysis here is very good. Some parts in particular are taken to depths that are indicative of an A* candidate (the analysis of the tree imagery in 'Hurricane Hits England' and why Nichols felt it was important to write about it in her poem), although, this particular analytical point could be more explicitly tied back to the alienation that she feels by living in the UK. They express their analysis well and the comparison is very clear. They draw on a number of poetic devices for their analysis and accurately identify the effect on the reader, as well as sensitively handling the emotions of the poem.

Response to question

This answer responds excellently to the question. Even though the candidate chooses to analysis poem-by-poem rather than point-by-point (the latter structural form often saving on time and more encouraging of comparison) but this is no means for penalising the candidate. Their answer focuses consistently on the expression of the importance of identity in both poems and their is plenty of evidence to suggest the analytical skills this candidate possesses are adeptly tuned to how Bhatt and Nichols present their ideas.

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