In both Hurricane Hits England and Search For My Tongue, the poems explore the theme of culture being important to person, both poems approach this theme in different ways.
Compare how a person's culture is shown to be important in "Hurricane Hits England" and in one other poem. In both "Hurricane Hits England" and "Search For My Tongue", the poems explore the theme of culture being important to person, both poems approach this theme in different ways. In "Hurricane Hits England", the poet uses the method of flashbacks to explore the theme, whereas "Search For My Tongue" approaches this theme by putting us in the author's shoes. In "Hurricane Hits England", the subject matter is based around the serious hurricane that hit Southern England 1987. This is a very rare life force that is unusual in this country, more frequently occurring in the Caribbean. This storm in England reminds Nichols about her culture and this life force has been able to "break the frozen lake" within her. This shows us, the reader her culture is important to her, by creating a fusion of human life and natural life forces; "Talk to me Huracan...Talk to me Shango". These "gods" that she is calling out to us the reader, makes us also think that she is trying to create a chant as if she sees the hurricane as both "Fearful and reassuring". Although she is happy that the hurricane has come for it has been able to help her discover her culture again, she is also reminded about what damage this 'life force' can do to a country, physically and emotionally. The poet is using this
Compare the ways the poets use description in from Search for my Tongue and Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan by Moniza Alvi.
Compare the ways the poets use description in 'from Search for my Tongue' and one other poem. 'Search for my tongue' but Sojata Bhatt and 'Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan' by Moniza Alvi both use description in their poems. The language in 'Search for my tongue' by Sujata Bhatt is very negative in the first section of the poem. She uses a metaphor for her first language as a "tongue" which "would rot, rot and die in your mouth until you had to spit it out." The negative language of her tongue rotting is very emotional for the reader as they would not like their tongue to "rot and die" either. On the other hand, in the second section, after the Gujarati, she uses more positive language and personifies her first language to "grows strong veins" as well as "grows longer" and "grows moist". Bhatt shows it like a new birth of her "mother tongue" as "the bud opens in my mouth" and "blossoms out of my mouth". All these language is more positive and describes what happens to her tongue. Conversely, the language used in 'Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan' is more colourful to show how much Moniza Alvi admires the clothes in Pakistan. She describes her "salwar kameez" with a simile of "glistening like an orange split open" which shows that she admires the clothing; however the "candy-striped glass bangles snapped, drew blood" which shows that even though she admires the clothing,
Compare Sujata Bhatt's Search for my tongue poem, with Grace Nichols' Hurricane Hits England, and decide whether or not having one or more culture can be a positive experience.
In both poems, Search For My Tongue and Hurricane Hits England, the authors are talking about being caught having more than one culture. We can see this from many different perspectives. First, where they begin to explain their story and trauma in short concentrated pieces of text and secondly where it shows that they are quite obviously unhappy and confused about their life. Evidence for this in Search For My Tongue is in lines three to six where she says 'I ask you, what would you do if you had two tongues in your mouth, and lost the first one, the mother tongue and could not really know the other' this tells us that she is very confused, desperate and would take help of anyone, it also tells us that she is unsure about what plan of action to take next. Evidence for this theory in Hurricane Hits England is where she says 'it took a hurricane to bring her closer, to the landscape, half the night she lay awake', this also shows us that in her story and experiences, she has deep thought about her situation and problems. this one theory doesn't itself show us that there may be a positive experience right now, but what it does show us and hint to us is that the poem may follow on and tell us a different outcome, slightly more positive if we were to guess, I gathered this when she said 'it took a hurricane to bring her closer' this is both a positive and a negative thing due to
What methods does Dharker use in This Room to explain a different culture compared to Not My Business by Niyi Osundare?
What methods does Dharker use in "This Room" to explain a different culture compared to "Not My Business" by Niyi Osundare? In the poem "This Room" Dharker uses the room as a personified metaphor throughout the whole poem. She talks of the room as if its living, to prove the point, in the first stanza it says "cracking through its own walls". She personifies the room as its cracking. I think she uses the word cracking as eggs crack. An egg gives new life; this could mean that the "room" as been given new life, new meaning or it could mean cracking in the form of destruction. However I think that the "room" has been suppressed and just given new life. On the other hand, a "room" cannot be suppressed so in my personal opinion I think the "room" is a metaphor for the country in which Dharker lives. However in the poem "Not my business", in the first stanza; it says "Beat him soft like clay". This is a simile, and makes the reader think that "Akanni" is beaten up so bad that he is soft. As clay is easily moulded and shaped I think she shows how severely he was beaten up and how powerless he was. I think in the next line "And stuffed him down the belly....", it brings images of clothes and objects being forced. This brings out compassion in a reader as humans should not be forced to anything and treated like a mere object. It then starts a repetition verse. In this stanza,
How do the poets present people in Vultures and Two scavengers in a truck, two beautiful people in a Mercedes
How do the poets present people in Vultures and one other poem. In the Vultures, Chinua Achebe presents a rather pessimistic view of mankind. He presents the reader with an ambiguous conclusion about the nature of people. He suggests that in even the most evil 'ogre' can love exist, or that love can only exist in people, in the presence of eternal evil. The main way that Achebe presents people, is the language he uses to describe the vultures. In fact, the vultures may be a metaphor for all people. The reader is bombarded with gruesome language, and the poet's diction is very negative. He writes of the depressing 'drizzle', the vultures perching on a 'broken bone of a dead tree'. He intertwines these depressing phrases with the revolting --, how the vultures 'picked the eyes' of a 'swollen corpse'. Yet he marvels at the seemingly misplaced show of love, as the male 'inclined affectionately' to the other vulture. In a sense Achebe uses language in this poem to suppress that even the most obviously repulsive people can show love. Similarly, Lawrence Ferlinghtti uses language in 'Two scavengers in a truck, two beautiful people in a Mercedes' to present people. However the difference here is that the language is used, not to repulse us, but to contrast the two couples we are shown. The contrast between the 'grungy scavengers' and the 'cool' couple is shown
