Analysis of "Refugee Mother and Child" By Chinua Achebe

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Nils Kwarciak                 English Analytical Coursework Essay

Analysis of “Refugee Mother and Child”

By Chinua Achebe

The success of the poem Refugee mother and child lies within Chinua Achebe’s ability to present an interfering, yet authentic and compelling poem. His own literary language is blended in with images and descriptions that create a sense of compassion for the unfortunate refugees. By skillfully contrasting the imagery of life and death, showing irony of singing in the mother’s eyes, and cleverly foreshadowing, Achebe effectively helps to direct the readers towards the eventual death of the mother’s child in the poem. Using literary devices such alliterations, contrasts, imagery, tones and symbols, Achebe proficiently specifies the ultimate destinies of the protagonists in the poem.  

Achebe starts his first stanza with the imagery of the famous painting of “Madonna and Child”. This metaphor of the painting symbolizing a great mother, and Madonna being Mary, the mother of Jesus here, expresses a divine, soft and tender feeling because in the bible Mary has always been a character of love, loyalty and honesty, which is reinforced with the rhyme in the second line of the first stanza between tenderness and forgets. The rhyme manages to reinforce this because it has a flowing and delicate sound, which symbolizes Mary. The two words “tenderness” and “forgets,” also have a contrast; forget being gone and tenderness showing a current situation. Achebe uses this contrast to show, distinction between the refugee mother and Madonna, but it immediately hints on the destiny of characters in the story. Mary’s child, Jesus passed away, and it seems to be that the refugee mother’s child is also going to depart. However, the writer clearly distinguishes images here. With a very compassionate stanza in the poem, the second stanza changes into a very different setting; “The air was heavy with odours/ of diarrhoea of unwashed children…”. This line shows the imagery of a dirty refugee camp in contrast to the first stanza. Diarrhoea and odours give a very poor idea of how life must be in the refugee camp. This contrast was probably set up to really express the terrible state of the refugee camp, as the poem started in a beautiful compassionate way, therefore suddenly changing to the deprived scene of the refugee camp, emphasizes on its terrible state. Achebe also uses vivid phrases and words “unwashed children with washed out ribs”, creating sense impressions. The repetition of wash emphasizes on the dirtiness of the refugee camp. There is also an irony here, due to the repetition of wash and dirty children, because essentially we are discussing the unfortunate state of children in the refugee camp, but wash makes a contrast to the actual scene. This makes the reader think about how appalling the camp might be, as wash gives a positive sense, but then the reader is hit by the dirty children again. “Washed out ribs” successfully indicate the poor health of the child, because usually young children are supposed to be chubby and round, but this child has clear under-nourishment, essentially showing the state of the whole refugee camp, by making an example of this child. The great contrast of ideas in the first stanza and second stanza effectively make the reader feel sympathetic towards the refugee mother and child.

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The mother’s emotions are well expressed in the first stanza by an alliteration that makes the reader understand the pain and distress that the mother is feeling. “…mother’s tenderness for a son she soon would have to forget.” The ‘S’ sound here are being used to emphasize tenderness from the mother towards her child, as the ‘S’ has a very delicate and flowing sound when tenderness is pronounced, thus also creating a depressing mood, which highlights on forgetting her son. This shows that there is a sad mood here, as by foreshadowing Achebe suggests that the refugee mother’s child ...

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