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How do the poets convey their disapproval of the strong impact that modernization has on Singapore?

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How do the poets convey their disapproval of the strong impact that modernization has on Singapore? In this young developing world around us, people everyday become more obsessed with perfecting the appearance and facades around them. Everything seems like they could surely take on a makeover. In the two poems, ‘ The Planners’ and ‘remembering trees’, their respective poems, Boey Kim Cheng and Joshua Yap, have expressed their disappointment that modernization that have affected countless people. Not everybody wants to perfect their country for the better and let their memories slip away. Both poets reveal their feelings of lost behind the contrasting structure and literary devices of their homeland, Singapore. Boey conveys his …show more content…

It allows readers to feel as if these illnesses such as loss of memory and being stuck in a trance state is endless. The speaker is compelled to feel as is people’s minds are being wiped clean just like how the planners are casually abolishing this city’s history. Boey is trying to let people know that the government is trying to brainwash them. Boey’s concern with the progress of Singapore is further expressed through the comparison of the planners and archaeologist. The assonance of the letters ‘ling’ behind ‘piling…drilling’ gives the speaker a sense of auditory imagery again sounds as if the ruining and compilation of Singapore is eternal. The comparison of the two contrasting verbs, ‘piling’ and ‘drilling’, conveys a strong message addressed to readers. Boey wants us to know that these ‘archaeologists’ are just like oleanders. They may seem important on the outside but are actually malicious on the inside. They are not historians that drill to recover ancient wealth but those that destroy the soul of this city. The extend of their ‘drilling’ is reinforced with the use of the noun ‘fossil’. Everything including prehistoric fossils had to be gotten rid of. The planners have wrecked too much of Singapore’s history and it is too late to stop them. Boey’s memorable childhood memories will always be with him but the physical pain he is going through watching his homeland

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