Compare the ways in which poets present their ideas and attitudes in Vultures and Limbo.

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Compare the ways in which poets present their ideas and attitudes in Vultures and Limbo.

  • Limbo

In this poem, Edward Kamau Brathwaite uses the game Limbo and limbo dancing to represent his memories of the slave trade. The poet uses the limbo stick to describe the action of the slaves: the stick is lowered towards the ground – the slaves are being forced down into the holds of the ship, becoming more down trodden as their lives are taken away.

Also Limbo can be seen as a ‘child hell’ for un-baptised Catholics, the slaves on the ship feel as though they’re in hell.

Dancing beneath the limbo stick is used in representation of the slaves actually aboard the ship. Many slaves would die and a combination of luck, chance and determination decided who would survive, just as it is touch-and-go whether or not the limbo dancer will make it under the stick without touching it.

The poet also uses the stick as a source of comparison: the whip used to beat the slaves and the stick used to beat the drum, as the slaves rowed themselves further towards life imprisonment. Finally, when the slaves reach the shore and they climb up out of the darkness, in chains, are criminals (which is ironic as it is the slaves as it is the slavers who are evil and unjust), the stick is being raised and the game ‘won’. There is a constant reference to the words ‘dark’ and ‘darkness’ (e.g. ‘the long dark night’, ‘the darkness is over me’, ‘the dark still steady’ etc.) throughout the poem and this puts emphasis on the mood the poet is trying to re-create.

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        Overall the poet’s memories are saddening but not with anger. They are written in first person singular, as if by the slave but also as if we were the slave – seeing through their eyes. Another point I have noticed is that the poem is all about one. ‘We’ is never used. The slave seems alone. He feels no companionship with the other slaves, who are not once mentioned. Nor does he express any remorse or emotion for those slaves who died those who, in a sense, touch the stick (as in a game of limbo). He talks only about ...

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