The poem begins with a graphic and unpleasant description of a pair of vultures who nestle lovingly together after feasting on a corpse. The poet remarks on the strangeness of love, existing in places one would not have thought possible. He goes on to consider the 'love' a concentration camp commander shows to his family - having spent his day burning human corpses, he buys them sweets on the way home,
The conclusion of the poem is ambiguous. On one hand, Achebe praises providence that even the cruelest of beings can show sparks of love, yet on the other he despairs - they show love solely for their family, and so allow themselves to commit atrocities towards others.
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The title is in some ways deceptive, like Ezekiel's The Night of the Scorpion. Although the poem begins with a cold and repulsive portrait of the vultures, we realise that they are symbols of evil and their main purpose is to introduce us to the theme of the poem.
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The description of the vultures is in the past tense but the Belsen Commandant is described in the present continuous tense, perhaps to remind us that evil is all around us now.
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The concentration camp Commandant cannot escape the evil deeds he has spent the day performing - the fumes of human roast [cling] rebelliously to his hairy nostrils (line 32). The word roast makes us think of food, so it is doubly repulsive that he then buys chocolate for his tender child (or children) on the way home.
Imagery and Sound
Imagery
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The opening of the poem is dark. The greyness (line 1) is heightened by the heavy alliteration in drizzle of one despondent dawn (line 2) and even the approaching sunbreak (line 4) does not lift the atmosphere.
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There are metaphors of horror and death: the dead tree (line 6) branch on which the vultures are roosting is described in as a broken bone (line 5), while the male vulture's bashed-in head is a pebble on a stem (line 9) and its body is a dump of gross feathers (line 11).
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In the second section, the vultures' affection leads the poet on to muse about the nature of love. Love is personified as a woman finding a place to sleep. She is in other ways so particular (line 23) and hard to please, yet, strangely, she chooses to sleep with the vultures, that charnel house (line 26). Yet why does love sleep with her face turned to the wall (line 28)?
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We see the Belsen Commandant - a mass murderer - as Daddy. Why does Achebe use a child's name for him rather than 'father'?
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In the fourth section the poet again uses metaphors: the evil Commandant is an ogre (line 43) with merely a spark of love - a tiny glow-worm tenderness (line 44) in the icy caverns of a cruel heart (line 46). These are fairly clichéd images, perhaps because Achebe wanted to suggest that what he is describing is nothing new: there will always be love and evil in the world.
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The germ (line 48) of love does not seem to grow as a normal seed would because the perpetuity of evil (line 50) is bound up with it and prevents it from developing. (Think of wheat germ rather than disease-carrying germs.)
Sound
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There is some alliteration in the poem, but otherwise Achebe concentrates on visual images rather than sound effects to present his ideas.
Attitude, tone and ideas
Much of the meaning of a poem is conveyed by the attitude it expresses toward its subject matter. 'Attitude' can be thought of as a combination of the poet's tone of voice, and the ideas he or she is trying to get across to the reader.
To decide on the tone, you need to think about the ideas and attitudes in the poem, and then decide how you would read it aloud.
Should the poem be read:
- in a nightmarish tone, as in a horror film?
- in a cold, dead tone, to emphasise all the horrors described?
- in a warmer tone, to celebrate the love that does exist?
Choose a short quotation to justify your choice.
Ideas
The ideas in this poem concern the relationship between evil and love. In the first part the vultures are used as a symbol for the paradox that evil and love can co-exist; in the second part Achebe uses the Belsen Commandant as an actual example of this. Have a look at the quotations below, and our suggestions about how they fit in to this theme.