The next stanza is very short and to the point.
“No sign says it is:
But we know where we belong.”
He has set these two lines apart from the rest of the previous stanza because they have a lot of impact and setting them apart heightens this impact. He is telling us how, although there is no longer a sign or a law setting blacks aside from whites the black and coloured people still face racism in every walk of life. Just that at the time of the poem being written it was a sort of “hidden” racism. By this I mean that when the apartheid system was still in force the racism in South Africa was very open and it was not only socially accepted but expected of white people to be racist towards anyone who was not white. It was illegal for black and white people to mix socially use the same toilets or ride in the same part of the bus - even to live in the same area was a crime. Since the abolishment of apartheid all of these “paper” rules were thrown away but the hatred they had instilled over the years in the white people towards the black people was still there. They still believed apartheid was right and no government judgement was going to tell them that everything they were bought up to believe was a lie.
The poet then talks about looking through the window of the restaurant and how he knows what will be there as if it is almost instinctive.
“I press my nose
To the clear panes, know,
Before I see them, there will be
Crushed ice white glass,
Linen falls
The single rose.”
He then goes on the compare the white’s only inn to the working man’s café down the road.
“Down the road,
Working man’s café sells
Bunny chows.
Take it with you, eat
It at a plastic table’s top,
Wipe your fingers on your jeans,
Spit a little on the floor:
It’s in the bone.”
Here he is talking about where the coloured people would go to eat rather than go to the white’s only inn. “Bunny chows” are a poor man’s lunch, they are pilchards in bread. Compared to the “haute cuisine” of the other restaurant there is a definite divide. Eating at a plastic table top rather than the linen table cloths and roses on the table of the white’s inn further shows the inequalities of blacks against whites. The differences in the two restaurants symbolise the inequalities in this society.
“Spit a little on the floor: it’s in the bone”
shows the white people’s view of the black and coloured people as deserving no better, that even if they were allowed into the expensive restaurant they would only bring down the standards of the place with their disgusting behaviour, which of course is no where near true, because they cannot change. It says a lot about white people views about keeping black people “in their place” that because they’re black they shouldn’t even be allowed the chance to dine in the white’s only inn.
The part about it being “in the bone” shows exactly what the views are of the white people. It’s saying a lot more than the three words appear to be. It’s saying how that when you are black you are born black and you will die black; you will never become any more than you are because of who you are. Yet more discrimination against people which has been instilled by the apartheid system.
“I back from the glass,
Boy again,
Leaving small, mean O
Of small, mean mouth.
Hands burn
For a stone, a bomb,
To shiver down the glass.
Nothing’s changed.”
Here he is remembering being a child when apartheid was at its height. He is remembering the anger he felt as a younger man at being set apart from white people and being denied the same rights and opportunities as the white children. The voice of the poem is one of great anger and bitterness. Afrika is protesting with words against the inequalities in his society, a society where the majority of the people are held back from even attempting to reach their full potential as intelligent human beings simply because of something as insignificant as the colour of their skin. These inequalities seem to be mainly expressed by the repeated references to the glass. Afrika is always on the outside looking in upon the life he is denied because of the colour of his skin. This final stanza shows us the violent thoughts that Afrika has simply because the situation is beyond reasoning. The white's only is appears to be a symbol of so called white supremacy and he wants to destroy it. Afrika seems to hold out little or no hope for change in the attitudes of the white people, this is shown by the final (and also title) line of the poem, simply, "nothing's changed".
I am now going to analyse the other poem I have been asked to look at, which is "Charlotte O'Neil's song" by Fiona Farrell.
The poet seems to have got the name for the subject of the poem from nineteenth century ship’s records. Charlotte O’Neil was seventeen years of age when she set sail for the British Empire in the hopes of creating a new life for herself. Before she left England she was a general servant of unknown origin. Charlotte set sail aboard a ship called the ‘Isabella Hercus’ in the year 1871.
Fiona Farrel has given Charlotte O’Neil a voice about the inequalities of her culture.
The poem begins by talking about the life the narrator had as a servant in a wealthy home. Namely the jobs she had to do on a day to day basis.
“You rang your bell and I answered.
I polished you parquet floor.
I scraped out your grate
And I washed you plate
And I scrubbed till my hands were raw.”
There is a definite air of discontent as she continues, this time with the life that her employer led.
“You lay on a silken pillow.
I lay on an attic cot.
That’s the way it should be, you said.
That’s the poor girl’s lot.
You dined at eight
And slept till late.”
Here she starts to make comparisons between the lives of rich and poor people in the nineteenth century. She talked about how she had to sleep in an attic on a presumably uncomfortable cot while the
person she served slept in extraordinary comfort when compared to
her own, even going so far as to use a silken pillow. This is to further
exhibit the differences between the upper and lower classes in the
society of that day and age.
Farrel then talks about the attitude of the narrator’s employer. The employer was adamant that the servant girl had got all she deserved, no more, no less. That was the way it should be in the eyes of the rich employer who had everything they could have ever wished for. She then says how her employer was lazy and often stayed up late eating and probably socialising and then slept through until the late hours.
The discontent continues to build up as the poem continues.
“I emptied your chamber pot.
The rich man earns his castle, you said.
The poor deserve the gate.”
Here she further talks about her life as a servant in the first line and the jobs, some worse than others, that she had to do for her employer.
She then continues about the view that her employer held on the way of things. The employer held the view that the rich were only rich because they worked for it and the poor were only poor because they were lazy. Obviously this was not the case as there are many social-economic factors to take into consideration. A poor person who was trying to make his or her way out of the gutter in the 19th century English society was likely to be shunned by his peers at both ends of the wealth scale. It was also very difficult to make your way into a well paid, respected position when you had neither the education nor the opportunity to do so.
Farrel then continues but now the atmosphere of the poem has changed.
“But I’ll never say ‘sir’
Or ‘thank you ma’am’
And I’ll never curtsey more.
You can bake your bread
And make your bed
And answer your own front door.”
Now she says she is leaving her job. Perhaps she is going on a wild adventure to the colonies. I don’t know - there is no mention of where she is going only that she will not longer be carrying out the tasks she usually does everyday for her employer.
The tone of the poem takes a significant rise into a more optimistic attitude at the beginning of this stanza.
She continues with talking about what she did and what she will do.
“I’ve cleaned your plate
and I’ve cleaned your house
and I’ve cleaned the clothes you wore.
But now you’re on your own, my dear.
I won’t be there any more.
And I’ll eat when I please
And I’ll sleep where I please
And you can open your own front door.”
Farrel talks about how the subject of the poem (Charlotte O’Neil) cleaned up every mess the employer made.
She sets aside the last line of the poem in order to give it more impact. The differences between the upper and working classes here seem to be mainly represented by the front door, which is mentioned three times in the poem (in stanza’s one, four and the last line). The poor open doors when the rich knock, it’s saying that whatever the rich people tell the poor people to do, they do it, without asking questions.
Charlotte on the other hand has had enough of this reality to the point where she has packed her bags and left the country in order to find a new life for herself overseas. In those days a trip overseas was not an easy task, it was a long, hard trawl through endless seas with many hazards. To chance this journey to travel to a land she had never been to, where she knew no-one and had none or very little money she must have reached the end of her tether. Her desperation is not shown so much in her words but in her actions. She desperately wants more than what she has and she knows in her heart that she will never achieve any of her goals if she stays where she is. She is making her own personal protest about the situation in her culture by leaving it in the hope of finding another.
Farrel and Afrika have both chosen to protest about different inequalities with words and both do it well. Afrika protested about the difficulties faced by black people in South Africa and Farrel made her stand about the inequalities poor people in England faced. Both made their complaints know to the world about two very different but very relevant subjects with poetry. Both poems are about hardship and the horrible injustices in human society in recent years and although set in different countries and about different kinds of inequality there is a definite feeling that both poems are talking about the same thing. Injustice.
