‘Harbingers of a sunbreak’ is an oxymoron, harbingers are messengers who frequently arrive to the villages with unpleasant news, this word is fused with the word “sunbreak” which is a word which reflects optimism and means the outcome of the sun in the morning. This is a display of the poem’s ideas as a whole as it contains dark sentiments with sparks of light in them to represent human kind.
In the poem you can notice how the personification takes place. It gives human qualities to an object; “bone of a dead tree” shows pain and death, which is directly related to human experience. This phrase says that a branch of a tree is like a broken bone, which is impossible because only humans and animals have bones. This is personification, making the tree more emotive and frightening which makes the reader have in mind their death. This phrase also creates a ashen atmosphere because trees are usually seen and described as alluring and usually represent life, however by saying “broken bone of a tree” the author creates negative and dead surroundings
After creating such a dull scene the author places in, a positive personification, “nestled close”, the word “nestled” creates a favourable concept because of its meaning. The writer wants to emulate that in this horrible environment there is some love; friendship love. He wants to emphasise some words more than others, to make this possible he uses enjambment, for example; “Of a swollen// corpse”. By doing this he forces the reader to pause at each word, and create itself two different images which makes him focus on the word “swollen”.
The author utilises the word “things” in the phrase “he ate the “things” to make it hugely revolting. This word makes it especially outrageous because the reader doesn’t know what things he has eaten. The author wants the reader to imagine the most horrible things and as everyone has different ideas about our own horror it will make it even more repulsive. By using the word “hollowed” he burns an image in your mind and makes you visualize the hollow bodies that had been devoured by the vultures. The word “Strange” by itself in one line sums up your feelings among the following section of the poem, and by being alone in one line it emphasises the word, it gives the word “Strange” a lot of importance.
Achebe shows affection as a pessimistic aspect of life, in the poem it says that love coils up like a snake in a corner, it also says that “love” is upset, angry or punished. Together with the phrase “turned to the wall”, the author personifies love. Reaching to a certain point of the poem, the author uses an ellipsis by dividing it into two supposed different stories, however, that’s what it seems from the outside, but if you , both stories is related one to another. To link these parts, the author changes line, and uses punctuation (...), he uses three dots at the end of the first part to show the poem continues, and then starts talking about the commandant “ Thus the Commandant at Belsen”, which appears to be a total different theme.
When the poet uses the phrase “fumes of human roast” it intends to create a disgusting scene, with the word “roast” he creates a linking image which relates the phrase to the animals, food and cooking (burning). The word ´roast` is associated to the word ´human` which makes you think of people being cooked and burned, and it seems even more revolting as the reader probably visualises itself in the same situation. With this extremely inhuman scene the author originates a cruel image referred to Commandant, he is also shown as a very horrendous man when Achebe talks about the commandant’s appearance; ´hairy nostrils`, the poet wants to incite the reader to hate this character.
The Commandant’s children are represented as his `tender offspring´, this produces a comparison between the commandant and the vulture because normally when referring to society the `offspring´ of someone usually are their sons or daughters, the word `offspring´ is applied when we talk about animals, so this word in a way shows that the commandant wasn’t very loving towards his children. The word ‘tender’ is used to describe is normally used to describe soft meat. This creates two impressions of the same concept; his offspring is related to good meat, yet it’s also related to the vultures, which creates a memorable paradoxical image.
The author wants the audience to see both facets of this terrible man, by saying the word ‘ Daddy’s’, this makes the commandant seem sweet and caring, and uses an enjambment ‘ Daddy’s // return’, to make the word ´return´ stand-out. He also wants to create two different images with the word ‘return’, to make the reader think that the children miss their father, and to prove that there’s also a bit of grace in such a cruel man.
To conclude, in the last paragraph Achebe summarises the poem. He thanks God that even an ‘ogre’ (which in society is seen as a stereotype of a malicious creature) has ‘a tiny glow-worm of tenderness encapsulated in icy caverns of a cruel heart’. This means that all human kind beings with a dark inside will unfailingly have a spark of mercy in him. Achebe finally expresses that human beings aren’t good or bad, they’re a combination of both, and this is what the whole poem represents.
The poem is made out of one stanza, which is divided into four subsections. This an unusual poem because the poet uses free verse, which makes the poem colloquial. It has no rhyme because rhymes make things amusing and musical and wouldn’t help the poet describe pessimistic aspects as he does in the majority of the poem. The four fragments link together evil, goodness, vultures and the commandant.
Achebe uses commas and enjambment to make it a slow paced poem to read which makes it sorrowed.
The whole poem is written in English by a Nigerian author, it is written for European readers. He wants to show that it doesn’t matter from where you belong, every war is the same as abominable and everyone has a bit of light and darkness in their hearts.
