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Critical analsis of two African pome
Asha dodiya B
paper :-14
Class: M.A. Sem.4
Year: 2015-2017
Submitted
to: M.K. Bhavnagar University,
Department of English
Email: ashadodiya15@gmail.com
Introduction
Gabriel Okara
He was born 24 April 1921 Nigerian Poet and novelist. Gabriel Okara is one of the most significant and serious early Nigerian poets. He was educated at Government College or his study at Northwestern University in 1949.
He also look at the traumatic effect that colonization and de-colonization can have on the self and a one’s sense of personal identity Okara has written many poem like.....
o “Once upon a time”
o “New York”
o “Were I to choose”
o “Telephone Conversation”
o “Refugee Mother”
o “Mystic Drum”
Here we are concerned with his 2 poems as enlisted under.
Once Upon Time
‘They used to shake hands with their hearts’
By this we can understand that the poet is reminding us of how we invite people to our homes and for tea and when the invited person does feel at home once it is okay so in other words we can say that when people invite. After that summing up stanza four, this stanza has been focused on how people tend to change their facial expressions for different occasions.
Once Upon Time was written as a concept of Father or son. Colonization Negritude worships anything African and use scintillating rhythms. The poet further says that now they only laugh with their teeth, while their ice-back cold eyes search behind his shadow’ Famous line…
”They used to shake hands with their heart”
They refers to western people who are white also this description in the poem gives the impression of genuine emotion given off by the people. There will ‘Be no more trice’ ‘for then I find doors shut on me’.
The second stanza this shows that again the people are fake and seem to be using the man to see what they can get.
“Feet at home come again”
Third stanza are Okara give a voice to the western society or shows that he is not used to formality, When people say come again they might just be polite.
In stanza four- there is the adaptations and solutions that the man has found to counter the problems. It begins by saving that the man has ’learned many things’ or focused on how people tend to change their facial expressions for different occasions.
The next stanza he deals with the fake attributes to go along with the fake looks. There are no true emotions, feelings and not his heart.
In six or seven he asks the ‘son’ almost pleads with him to ‘show me, son how to laugh; show me how I used to laugh and smile’. He is having the conversation with that teach him all the good habits he has lost and teach him to have true emotions.
“To New York’
Beauty of New York : Blue eye, Golden Girl. The poet Leopold Sedar Senghor exclaims that at first the beauty of New York held him spell-bound as it was superficial. It was limited to physicality of the “great long-legged golden girls.” The adjective “metallic” has various connotations here. The term may refer to the lifelessness of the eyes. It may also allude to the nerve of steel.
Night in New York
Sun’s eclipse
No Natural environment
The line “lifting up owl eyes in the sun’s eclipse” reveals how the warmth of life is denied to them. The adjective “sulphurous” indicates pollution. The stone of the skyscrapers has weathered well against the climatic conditions.
Beauty of New York –
“New York! At first I was bewildered by your beauty,”
“No laugh from a growing child”
Nothing is deemed innocent here in this pretentious sophistication, pseudo-modern existence. No child’s laughter is to be heard, no mother suckling her baby. The poet goes out to criticize European art asserting that the painter’s palette is filled with crystals of coral. The nights in Manhattan are characterized by insomnia.
“ long-legged, golden girls”
“blue metallic eyes”
“icy smile”
The poet warns the superficial world to pay attention to the heeding of God-“signs and reckonings.” Senghor states that it was high time for manna and hyssop, the time for heavenly purity to descend on earth.
“Now is the time of manna and hyssop.”
Manna symbolizes the happiness of heaven. Hyssop that the blood of a bird offered in sacrifice is to be sprinkled for the cleansing of a man or a house affected with leprosy. The three sensory perceptions are subject to artificial stimulations. This is the only interval to the man delivering pharmaceutical products.
Artificiality
Cultural heritage
Life without interest
Birds don’t have home
Harlem is a neighbourhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural, and business center. It stands for the assimilation of the ”white rum” and “black milk. The masks adorned are “fabulous masks”
The third stanza picks up the tempo, and Senghor is earnestly imploring New York to “let black blood flow into your blood..” Senghor seeks to make New York aware of just how much of Africa’s culture is held within it. He encourages the people to “Let it give your bridges the curve of hips and supple vines. Idea links to action, the ear to the heart, sign to meaning. Means claims that unity is to be discovered in the reconciliation of the Lion, the Bull and the Tree.
“your world needs sweetening, child”
The air will not deny you. Like a top Spin you on the navel of the storm. The end becomes the means. The meaning of the journey no longer holds significance in a fast-forward life. In fact, they do not have possess a heritage at all; therefore, there is no need “to invent the mermaids” The steel articulations refer to the Industrial Revolution. Besides, it may also allude to the steel nerve of the colonizers.
“New York! I say New York, let the black blood flow into your blood Cleaning the rust from your steel articulations, like an “oil of life.” He tries to purify New York, by washing away the old being the rust and the tainted ways and bringing it back to it once was. Negritude into a people who were probably very closed off, and rallies his Negro brethren to take pride in their heritage. Do not have equal position Lets black blood flow on New York
Conclusion
All poets are uses this poem to convey his feelings, traditional African culture against western1 influences. Red are symbolically and the refrain reminds us again and again, that this Eve turns out to be the eve of Nigerian damnation.
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Works Cited
- Vajani Bhumi's Assignment. March 2014. <www.bhumivajani062013.blogspot.in>.
- http://prafulghareniyabatch2014-16.blogspot.in/2016/04/analysis-in-gabriel-oak-any-three-poem.html
