'Vultures' by Chinua Achebe, 'Night of the Scorpion' by Nissim Ezekiel, 'Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan' by Moniza Alvi, and 'Nothings Changed' - What are the main ideas in the four poems?

Authors Avatar

Essay title:

                What are the main ideas in the four poems?  How do the poets describe experiences and inform us about their poems?  Explain how the ideas presented in each of the poems revolve around the notion of the ‘difference’.  Relate these ideas to your own lives.

 

Sources:

  • Vultures’ by Chinua Achebe,
  • ‘Night of the Scorpion’ by Nissim Ezekiel
  • ‘Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan’ by Moniza Alvi
  • ‘Nothings Changed’

The characters in all four poems may all be different their situation and what they talk about but they are all similar as they all give the reader their opinion of as to how they see the world through their eyes and their beliefs.  They question and reflect about their surrounds trying to make sense of what is happening and whether this is what life is like or is this something that will change.

‘Nothings Changed’ is about a young man who returns to where he once lived.  There was apartheid when he was there, a law that divided blacks from whites.  Despite apartheid being abolished people’s ideologies and behaviour had not changed, still having that invisible barrier between the blacks and the whites.  He describes the different classes whites (upper class) in their elegant restaurants, eating ‘haute cuisine’, whereas the blacks (lower class) are left in their ‘working man’s café’ eating ‘bunny chows’, which is something of a cheap and filling take-away food eaten mainly by the poor.  As he describes what he sees he expresses his anger and states that ‘Nothings Changed’, also the title of the poem, which concludes what life is still like there.  I can understand the anger the boy must feel seeing that life has not changed. Even to this day racial in equally still exists and being coloured myself I do see this even though we are in the 21st Century.  Onomatopoeia is used ‘crunch’, which creates a sound that is loud and unpleasant almost as unpleasant as the boy sees that nothing has changed and it expresses his anger. Short stanzas are used to give the poem more rhythm and feeling.  When someone is angry they tend to say short sentences to get the message across.  

Join now!

In the poem ‘Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan’ the poet talks about a girl who is a Pakistani, who has been raised in Britain with all the traditions and cultures of the west.  She receives presents from her aunts in Pakistan and is left questioning herself as to what identity really is.  She admires the ‘salwar kameez’ that she receives but does feel she is a part of that culture and holds back from it by saying ‘I tried each stain-silken top – was alien in the sitting–room. The use of the metaphor ‘alien’ emphasises how different and ...

This is a preview of the whole essay