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A far cry from Africa (1962) - Derek Walcott (ANIMALITY ("A wind is…
A far cry from Africa
(1962) - Derek Walcott
ANIMALITY
"
A wind is ruffling the tawny pelt / Of Africa
"
"
tawny
: brownish-orange coloured, often used to describe the pelt of lions
"
pelt
": personification, violence and majesty of Africa
"
a wind
": indefinite article: the poet persona cannot quite identify
"
is ruffling
": present participle, something unusual is happening
"
Kikuyu, quick as flies
"
"
quick as flies
": death + natural imagery (evokes flies drinking blood off a corpse)
"
Only the worm, colonel of carrion, cries: / 'Waste no compassion on these separate dead!'
"
"
worm
": pejorative, the British are compared to worms whereas the Kikuyu are compared to flies: same level
direct speech: immerses the reader in the action, makes them feel the violence
"
Threshed out by beaters, the long rushes break / In a white dust of ibises whose cries / Have wheeled since civilisation's dawn / From the parched river of beast-teeming plain.
"
"
ibis
": iconic wading bird with a special call and has been a part of the African landscape since humans first used tools
scene of a hunt: man vs nature
cries of the animals since the beginning of civlisation: violence against the weaker exists since the beginning of humanity
"
Delirious as these worried beasts, his wars / Dance to the tightened carcass of a drum / While he calls courage still that native dread / Of the white peace contracted by the dead
"
"
dance to the tightened carcass of a drum
": the death that is a result of war is incorporated into traditions
rhyme "
dread
"/"
dead
": the fear of the natives will result in death
PHYSICAL VIOLENCE
"
Kikuyu, quick as flies, / Batten upon the bloodstreams of the veldt.
"
"
Kikuyu
: largest ethnic group in Kenya, started the Mau Mau uprising in the 50s, a war against the British colonisers that ended in a defeat of the natives
"
quick as flies
": death + natural imagery (evokes flies drinking blood off a corpse)
"
to batten
": to feed greedily at someone's expense
"
batten upon the bloodstreams
": alliteration in b: violence + "
bloodstreams
": lots of blood
"
veldt
": grassland with trees and shrubs
"
Corpses are scattered through a paradise.
"
irony of the oxymoron "
corpses
"/"
paradise
"
"
scattered
": chaos
"
What is that to the white child hacked in bed? / To savages, expendable as Jews?
"
Rhetorical questions: violence is pointless
Shows both sides of the massacre: condemns both
"
The violence of beast on beast is read / As natural law, but upright man / Seeks his divinity by inflicting pain
"
The only way men feel they can become strong is by hurting others
COLONIAL VIOLENCE
"
Statistics justify and scholars seize / The salients of colonial policy
"
Contrast between the harsh physical violence and the abstract detachment of statistics: lack of humanity
Alliterations in "s" "t" and "k": very mechanic: lack of humanity
"
To savages, expendable as Jews?
"
"
savage
": very negatively connotated colonial word
"
expendable as Jews
": parallel between the massacre of the Kikuyu and the Holocaust: emphasises the horror
"
Again brutish necessity wipes its hands / Upon the napkin of a dirty cause, again / A waste of our compassion, as with Spain / The gorilla wrestles with the superman
"
"
brutish
" sounds like "British"
contrast between "
brutish
" and "
wipes its hands upon the napkin
": violence and horror hiding behind manners
"
the gorilla wrestles with the superman
": two pop culure icons (already at the time: natural violence against superiority given at birth*"
CONFUSED IDENTITY
(Walcott is biracial)
"
I who am poisoned with the blood of both, / Where shall I turn, divided to the vein?
"
lexical field of blood: reference to birth and heritage
"
poisoned
": this double identity is a curse
rhetorical question: he cannot answer it
"
both
" + "
divided
": emphasis on the dilmemna
"
I who have cursed / The drunken officer of British rule, how choose / Between this Africa and the English tongue I love
""
"
have cursed
": he has rejected the British but is bound to the language
"
Betray them both, or give back what they give? / How can I face such slaughter and be cool? / How can I turn from Africa and live?
"
"
betray
": picking a side is impossible
oxymoron: "
slaughter
"/"
cool
": impossible situation