but the harsh onomatopoeias such as “crunch” and “click” tell us that the return in painful for him.
In the second stanza, he begins to get angry. Throughout that stanza there is a repetition leading up to the ‘anger of my eyes’. The poet says that there is no board or sign that says he is in district six but Afrika knows he is. Anger at this stage begins to build up inside him. In the next two stanzas it is clear that white people are treated better and that they get all the advantages. All white people live luxuriously; they eat in luxurious restaurants.
“There will be crushed ice white glass, linen falls,
the single rose”
(T.Afrika: 1990)
After describing the whites only inn, Afrika contrasts this with the black working man’s café. Black people live in poverty. Instead of expensive food, the café sells Bunny Chows, a cheap filling sandwich. The last sentence of that stanza says, “it is in the bone”. This is what white people think of blacks wiping their hands on their jeans and spitting on the floor, but the whites have given black people no choice. At this point the writers anger is flaring like the flag above the whites only inn. He is powerless, his feelings get stronger and it seems as if he is coming close to breaking point. The reason why Tatumkhulu Afrika uses the term “Nothing’s changed” is that since apartheid the blacks have been treated badly. The area has been completely destroyed and on Afrika’s return to District Six things do not seem to have changed.
The poem is structured into two halves, separated by two lines at the end of stanza four. This reflects the separation of the blacks from the whites.
The story recounts the sudden marriage of Desiree, who has a mysterious past and Armand is a slave owner. When their baby is born, Armand is angry because he blames Desiree for the fact that the baby is of a mixed race. Armand has black slaves working for him on his plantation. In the six paragraph of the story we are told how Armand treats his black workers. Armand is very strict towards them and has no respect for them. The condition that the black people work under has made them forget what happiness is. After the birth of their son, Desiree tells Madame Valmonde:
“He hasn’t punished one of them-- not one of them-- since baby is born”
(Kate Chopin)
This shows that he is cruel, and that he has not really changed his attitude towards his black slaves. Armand has been bought up to despise black people because white people saw themselves as superior to black people. Armand has been bought up to be very proud but there are clues that he is not as superior as he thought he was. For example, Desiree tells him,
“Look at my hair, it is brown. My eyes are grey. My skin is fair. And my hands; whiter than yours”
(Kate Chopin)
This quotation prepares us for the twist at the end of the story. When Armand reads the letter and discovers he is a son of a slave.
The story’s structure covers a long period of time than the poem, and develops relationships between the characters. The author gives us clues in the language to prepare us for the twist at the end. For example, when the writer describes L’Abri, where Armand lives, she uses similes like “black like cowl” and phrases such as “far-reaching branches shadowed it like a pall.” The writer uses dark colours to describe Armand, as he is black and light colours to describe Desiree, as she is white.
I think that the author of the story wants us to feel that Armand has got his punishment. Armand was very prejudice and against black people, but has to face up to the fact that his mother was a slave. I think that as Armand despises all black people, he despises himself as well.
In conclusion, both the story and the poem may have been set in different countries and at different times. But both show how white people feel superior to black people. Both texts use different techniques to show how white people use their power to deprive black people of the rights and freedom.