A Far Cry From Africa Analysis

A wind is ruffling the tawny pelt
Of Africa, Kikuyu, quick as flies,
Batten upon the bloodstreams of the veldt.
Corpses are scattered through a paradise.
Only the worm, colonel of carrion, cries:
"Waste no compassion on these separate dead!"
Statistics justify and scholars seize
The salients of colonial policy.
What is that to the white child hacked in bed?
To savages, expendable as Jews?
Threshed out by beaters, the long rushes break
In a white dust of ibises whose cries
Have wheeled since civilizations dawn
>From the parched river or beast-teeming plain.
The violence of beast on beast is read
As natural law, but upright man
Seeks his divinity by inflicting pain.
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.

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.
I who am poisoned with the blood of both,
Where shall I turn, divided to the vein?
I who have cursed
The drunken officer of British rule, how choose
Between this Africa and the English tongue I love?
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?


Anonymous submission.

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The tone of the poem is urgent. And you can see that within the poem itself, there is a cycle. It begins with questions and ends with questions. However, the only difference is that the being questions are rhetorical ones,ie, we can answer them, but the questions towards the end has no answer to them. There is paradox used in line 4 "corpses are scattered through a paradise" Corpses do not belong in the world of paradise, therefore contrdictory. Simile "quick as flies" and metaphor in the front line are also used to make the poem more energetic and interesting to read. This effect also gives impact to what Walcott is trying to suggest. The poem is very deep and needs great understanding of historical context to further your knowledge of "A far cry from Africa"

| Posted on 2008-08-05 | by a guest