How do Tatamkhulu Afrika and Ferilinghetti express the sense of inequality in the poems “Nothing’s Changed” and “Two Scavengers in a truck, Two Beautiful people in a Mercedes?”
Ferlinghetti’s poem “Two scavengers in a truck, two beautiful people in a mercedes” is trying to show two different people in the same place, same country which is supposed to be called equal but in reality are completely inequal.
However, Afrika’s poem “Nothing’s Changed” tries to connect two different time periods; before independence and after independence; He talks about the apartheid and believes that the inequality still exists, even though the apartheid is over. There is a very vivid and clear use of imagery in the third stanza, especially colour imagery, ‘whites only inn’, ‘the crushed
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He has varied the tone throughout the whole poem. There is a very surprising opening line in the poem with a series of monosyllabic words. This helps build up the imagery in the opening lines in which the poet establishes the wasteland that is District 6. As it is written in first person we are also drawn into the world the poet creates in the poem. The Imagery is reinforced with the references to un-mowed grass that has gone to seed and to the purple weeds. There is the beginning of a change in tone in the second stanza. The use of the two word title ‘District Six’ is a stark statement and expects you to know the area the poet is talking about.The repetition in the next few line underlines the growing anger the poet feels and heralds a dramatic change in tone from the opening lines of the poem. The use of punctuation also helps to build up the sense of growing anger. The poet has used several poetic devices at beginning of the third stanza; for example the internal rhyme on ‘Brash with glass’ and alliteration on ‘flaring like a flag’ which helps changing the tone by reducing the anger at the end of the last stanza to bitter
“‘Race Politics” by Luis J. Rodriguez was about him and his brother living in a place called Watts. They journey over the tracks, trying to get the “good food” for their family. They go to the store, and find themselves face to face with five teenagers who knock the food out of their hands, and beat up the main character’s older brother, causing him to vomit. The teenagers leave, with them on the floor. The purpose for writing this essay is to identify syntax, connotation, and imagery within this poem, and decide what makes it important to the overall poem. The overall impression that Luis conveys within his work is the feeling of separation.
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Ferlinghetti’s poem Two Scavengers in a Truck Two Beautiful People in a Mercedes portrays social inequality in a very direct way. The poet is narrating two different groups of people in L.A. to show the side effects of democracy in America. Also, in Maya Angelo’s Caged Bird, the poet has experienced the trauma of being black in America. She was born in 1928 when racism was something that black people had to endure. The both poets effectively present their own situations of inequity through the use of language and literary devices, such as imagery, personification and stanza use.
In this poem, Anzaldua makes excellent use of tone to convey the theme. Anzaldua describes an aunt telling her daughter to stand tall in the face of otherization, instead of being crushed by it. The aunt states “And yes [White men] have taken our lands” (Anzaldua 17), but then continues to further state “But they will never take that
Identity is portrayed similarly in “half caste” and “no problem” because they are both about race and their struggle to be acknowledged as a person. Both poets John Agard and Benjamin Zephaniah use language, for and structure to show the struggle.
As evident by the title of this poem, imagery is a strong technique used in this poem as the author describes with great detail his journey through a sawmill town. This technique is used most in the following phrases: “...down a tilting road, into a distant valley.” And “The sawmill towns, bare hamlets built of boards with perhaps a store”. This has the effect of creating an image in the reader’s mind and making the poem even more real.
The tone of this poem is established by the way the lines seem flat and void of emotion. The
In this poem, we see the tone light and free, also much imagery. We see this immediately with the first line saying, the “afternoon was the colour of water falling through sunlight” (1). We immediately get a sense of a beautiful day, maybe even fall with the trees descriptions in the following line, “trees glittered with the tumbling of leaves” (2). Lowell shows such beautiful imagery throughout her poem especially in her first two stanzas, that when we read that they are in the middle of war in the third stanza, that it is slightly shocking. That there are “two little boys, lying flat on their faces” (7) and that they are, “carefully gathering red berries” (8). Here Lowell shows that it is still a beautiful day but the darker reality is that they are currently in a war. Then we start to see the poem more in a melancholy light. That these two little boys are picking berries to save for later, instead of enjoying it right now. However one day the boys wish that “there will be no more war” (10), and that then, they could in fact enjoy their berries, their afternoon and “turn it in my fingers”. In this poem, we clearly see the different tones throughout. Lowell shows us the light tone, then a more melancholy tone and then finally a hopeful tone.
It again reinforces the thematic concern of the overall theme. The tone does not change throughout the poem suggesting the constant constraint the poet felt. This is created by words such as "rage", "smouldering" and "furious". Which again highlights the irritation the poet herself felt due to the lack of freedom on the poetic inspirations. Therefore, the tone creates a sense of "life as bleak".
Ferlinghetti seems to feel slightly less strongly, as he expresses his ideas in a way that is less harsh and jarring, in comparison with Afrika's use of language. Ferlinghetti conveys his ideas in a more ambiguous manner. For example, the last line of his poem: 'across the small gulf in the high seas of this democracy' could be interpreted as either Ferlinghetti showing his disapproval for a society which allows such divisions to arise, or illustrating his approval for a society which allows such diverse lifestyles to co-exist with alongside each other. However, it is clear that Ferlinghetti feels strongly about the divisions (whether in positive or negative light) that wealth can bring, as throughout the poem, he continually contrasts the two 'garbage men' and the 'beautiful people'. For example, in the first stanza, he illustrates the difference in physical height between the garbage men 'looking down' onto the people in the Mercedes, who are down below.
In Derek Walcott’s From in a Green Night: A Far Cry from Africa, the author explains and dives into the topic of colonialism and self-reflection through his own experiences of being trapped between his Kenyan and British descent. Similar to Fanon’s concept of complicity, Walcott also understands both sides of the story in an unbiased manner. In his poem, he uses imagery to describe the violent past in which Kenyans and British people have committed to each other, the ‘savage’ nature of humans during colonization, and his own internal speech where he himself is confused of his cultural and social identity. This paper will explore the core concepts of Walcott’s writing and further explain it through Fanon’s lens to amplify the meaning of the poem.
Nadine Gordimer’s “What were you dreaming?” is known to be a very sensitive, open account of her private and social relationship in South Africa. Gordimer witnessed the difference between the white minority, and their continuous efforts to weaken the rights of the black population. Gordimer made it her duty to promote the consequences of the apartheid, the problems that oppression inflicts on both the colonized (settled) and the colonizers (immigrants), its effect on daily life, and the division it caused between the black and white races. As a result, she wrote the short story, “What were you dreaming?” to show the readers her view, not explain it.
Two Scavengers in a Truck,Two Beautiful People in Mercedes and Nothings Changed Compare and contrast of two poems from different cultures- ‘Two Scavengers in a Truck, Two beautiful People in Mercedes’ and ‘Nothings Changed’. ‘Two Scavengers in a Truck, Two Beautiful People in Mercedes’ by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, is a poem about four very different people brought together by traffic lights turning red. The poet is protesting against the inequalities within a democracy. ‘Nothings Changed’ by Tatamkhulu Afrika, is a poem which is also protesting, but about the way black people are treated in a place where the poet used to live, in District Six, in South Africa, where apartheid took place.
In the third stanza, a lot of imagery is used. The significant ones are present in the seventh and eleventh lines. In the first line, the poet writes, "A
This section demonstrates how the fear manifested itself among the whites. The Afrikaners’ power is not in numbers, as “they were few” but instead in political authority. They exploit this and impose harsh laws on the black to try to control and restrict them. However, they have bound themselves in their fear of the natives, a force that is perhaps more confining than their rules. Instead of trying to understand their fear and show their compassion towards these other human beings, they instead choose to hide it so that they will not appear weak. Additionally, the solution of love that Paton suggests presents a conundrum. In order end the fear, they must love, but to love they must stop being afraid. This demonstrates the almost impossible nature of true equality occurring between the natives and the Afrikaners.