In the following essay I will endeavour to compare the two poems. Nothing changed by Tatamkhulu Afrika and An Old Woman by Arun Kolatkar. I will specifically look at the theme as well as relationship between people in their environment.

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Andrew Brganca

                                 Diverse Culture & Traditions

In the following essay I will endeavour to compare the two poems. Nothing changed by Tatamkhulu Afrika and An Old Woman by Arun Kolatkar. I will specifically look at the theme as well as relationship between people in their environment.

   The poem, ‘Nothing Changed,’ is about the poet that returns to the wasteland that was once his home, and relives the anger he felt when the area was first destroyed. This is described in stanza in stanzas 1and 2. In stanza 3’ the narrator of the poem sees a new restaurant: expensive, stylish, and exclusive, with a guard at the gatepost’ alliteration on g sounds emphasises harsh feeling towards white culture. He thinks about the poverty around it, especially the working man's café nearby, where people eat without plates from a plastic tabletop (stanzas 4). This makes him reflect that despite the changing political situation, there are still huge inequalities between blacks and whites. Even though South Africa is supposed to have changed, he knows the new restaurant is really 'whites-only'(stanzas 3). He feels that nothing has really changed. The voice of the poem is the poet’s voice and it is angry in tone. This continuous through out.  The deep anger he feels makes him want to destroy the restaurant - to smash the glass with a stone, or a bomb. ‘Nothing’s Changed’ is an angry poem. It was written in the 1960s, when South Africa’s policy of apartheid (or separate development) the government declared District 6 a 'whites only' area, and began to evacuate the population. Over a period of years the entire area was raised to the ground. Most of it has never been built on. The poem was written just after the official end of apartheid. It was a time of hope - Nelson Mandela had recently been released from prison, and the ANC was about to become the government of South Africa.

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   The poem ‘An Old Woman,’ is about a common enough experience, the experience of misjudging someone. A tourist is approached by an old beggar-woman she is reduced to asking for money, she offers to show him one of the tourist sights in Jejuri, ‘the horseshoe shrine’ (stanzas 1-2). He tries to shrug off her attentions. He finds her very annoying (stanzas 3-5). Most of the poem is about the middle class person. The woman pleas with him (stanza 6). The tourist now cannot ignore her. There only one line from the old woman speaking 'What else can an old ...

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