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Mau Mau was “perverted tribalism” that sought to take the Kikuyu people back to “the bad old days” before British rule” (Berman 181).
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The poem is the “product” of the British ideologies in the 1950s regarding the Mau Mau: “The contemporary, colonial view saw Mau Mau as a savage, violent, and depraved tribal cult, an expression of unrestrained emotion rather than reason. The cultures being examined in this piece are African and European and the author presents an analysis of each class in both “piercing” and “shallow” ways. Literature reflects an author’s own class or analysis of class relations, however piercing or shallow that analysis may be” (Abrams 149). A Far Cry from Africa” cannot fully be understood without examining it through a Marxism perspective, which illuminates the issue of conflict in regards to ethnic strife and divided loyalties: “Marxists generally view literature not as works created in accordance with timeless artistic criteria, but as ‘products’ of the economic and ideological determinants specific to that era. In a sentence, I say that the poet is in dilemma whether to accept him as the African or the transmission of British.Kameelah Watley ENG 2250-101 Bradley Joseph A Far Cry From Africa: Divided Loyalties Derek Walcott’s “A Far Cry from Africa” is a representation of ethnic strife and divided loyalties that are communicated through the referencing of the Mau Mau Uprising, which is essentially an amplification of the speaker’s internal conflict in regards to his mixed heritage. In the nutshell, the poet is in search of existence which I have described as Diaspora sentiment, and he also talks about the nature of the British people and how they transformed the British culture to those Africans. The lines, “I who am poisoned with the blood of both, Where shall I turn, divided to the vein?”, also tells he could leave neither his African nationality nor English tongue. Even in him, there is an amalgamation of blood and culture which couldn’t be discarded. The cultural transmission couldn’t be avoided. Later on, he tells that things had been changed. Then, he presented the British as a superman, most powerful country of that time and the African as a gorilla who is one of the most powerful animals, and even though, the African tried to fight with the British, their practice for their own existence went to vain. He tried to clarify that he only wanted to be an African but he loved the English tongue as well which he couldn’t disseminate from him. As line says, “Threshed out by beaters, the long rushes break, In a white dust of ibises whose cries”, it means the British were the materials like who were composed out of complex machine and they possessed beast like quality.įrom the second stanza, he talks more about the Diaspora sentiment, which means love for the nation and nationality. Therefore, people were victimized by the colonizer and even killed when their purpose were not fulfilled.Īgain in the same stanza, he talks about the nature of the colonizer and their traits. Also, he adds that the colonel of carrion, the worm, which symbolises the British, had no sympathy towards the dead people. People were being killed and their dead bodies were scattered like cattle on the beautiful land of Africa. He starts the poem with the scenario how the disaster came like hurricane and destroyed everything as quick as possible. The very first stanza mainly talks about the problems that arose after the Africa was colonized by British. This information helped me to make some assumption about writing this poem and I read and understood in my way. As I read about the poet, Derek Walcott, I came to know that he is an African Poet.