Name:- Gohel Ankita
Kishorbhai
Std:- M.A
Sem:-4
Roll no:- 12
Paper no:- 14( The African Literature)
Topic:- Critical Overviews
of Gabriel Okra’s poems.
Submitted to:- Department of English, Mahahraja Krishnakumarsinhji
University.
Year:- 2015-17
Introduction:-
Cultural conflict is one of the most striking points in
African poetry. In African what is culture and tradition that seems uncultured
or peculiar to the western. African poet Gobriel Okara focuses the ice cold
attitude of Europeans to the African culture. In African what is traditional
and cultured and humorous to Europeans. They also represent the African culture
in humiliated sense. Gabriel Jibaba Okara was born on 24 April in 1921. He is a
Nigerian poet and novelist who were born in Bomoundi in Bayelsa state, Nigeria.
He was awarded the commonwealth poetry award in 1979. His most famous poem is
"Piano and Drums". His famous poem is "You laughed & laughed
& laughed". It's a frequent feature of anthologies.
Okara is worried about the attack of Western culturemover
the African ancient culture. His poem "Once upon a time" deals with
the same theme. Also his novel' The Voice ' depicts this theme. Its protagonist
Okara, like many post colonial. Africans is hunted by society and society by
his own ideals. Unfortunately many of Okara' s manuscripts have been destroyed
in the civil war. Gabriel Okara was born in Nigeria when there was a British
colony and, indeed, it would be nearly forty years before his country was to
gain independence in October 1960.During his life, Okara did jobs like,
initially working as a book binder, journalist, radio broadcaster and newspaper
editor. He has also travelled to the USA where he helped raise money for Nigeria
by giving poetry mrecitals.
Okara’s poems tend reflect the problems that African
nations face as they are torn between the culture of their European colonists
and their traditional African heritage. He also looks at the traumatic effect
that colonization and Decolonization can have on the self and a one's sense of
personal identity. For example Okara often depicts characters suffering from
'Culture shock' as they are torn between these two irreconcilable cultures. On
the one hand there is Christianity and the definite material benefits such
as classroom education and well paid jobs that the European way of life offers,
while on the other hand, there is the unspoken expectation that the 'true'
African was allegiance to his original tribal culture and should embrace these
'roots'. This contrast is summed up nicely by another African poet called Mabel
segue in the following lines:
“Here we stand
Infants
overblown
Packed between
two
civilizations
Finding the
balance
irksome”.
As a result of this divide Okara seems to suggest many
modern Africans do not know ‘who they are’ or ‘what they should be’. His poem
‘Once Upon a Time’ clearly describes the problems that can arise when the
culture of ancient Africa & Modern Europe clash leaving people without a
clear sense of how to behave & where to look for Once Upon a Time
Okara examines the contrast between the modern culture and his African
ancient culture. He wants Africans to be positive for their right
future. Okara’s work, like other poets work deals with the theme of
Negritude. In addition to recurrent anger at the atrocities of slavery
and colonization Negritude worship anything African and use
scintillating rhythms or vibrant descriptors to personifying or indeed
defying their homeland.
‘Once Upon Time’ was written as
a conversation of father and son. It is Okara’s style tomexplain what
happens when a traditional African culture meets the forces of the western way
of life. I think the poem ridicules the fake personalities of many people and
to try and get then to return to a natural and innocent state. If we compose
‘Once Upon a Time’ and ‘Coleridge Jackson’, we find that both the poems show
how black people have been treated in western society by racist individuals.
The poem discusses the conversation between what seems to be a father wants to
learn from his son how to go back to normality and no longer be fake. The poem
‘Once Upon a Time’ starts by the father telling his son how the people or they
used to laugh with their hearts. I think that the word ‘they’ refers to western
people who are while the poems description gives the impression of genuine
emotion given off by the people. The poet further says that now they only laugh
with their teeth, while their ice back cold eyes search behind his shadow’. This
indicates fake negative and false feelings and it is a very cold description.
This affects the tone of the poem that now becomes sinister and bitter. The
lines….
‘ They used to
shake hands with their hearts’
Shows
true and genuine
emotion the first stanza
presents the
reality…
"Now they
only shake hands without hearts
while their left
hands search
my empty
pockets”.
The above lines again deal with the precedence of the
people. The stanza three explain more about the changes he has noticed in this
false people. But the phases ‘Feel at home’! Come again, but then the poet goes
on to say that he will come again ‘Once’, Twice’ but there will ‘Be no more
trice’ ‘for then I find doors shut on me’. This shows that the falseness is
seen in human being everywhere.
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’, already suggesting that he has changed to fit
in. The poet explainsthe things he has learn. He says that he has learn to
‘Wear’ the faces and informs that he wears faces for different situations. For
example, he tells us that he has an
‘office face’,
‘Street face’ and ‘Host face’.
The stanza five deals with the fake attributes to go
along with the fake looks. This poem has many repetitions. The poet says that
he has also ‘learned to laugh with only his teeth’ and ‘shakes hand without his
heart’. The poet criticizes the western ways that is adopted. The man seems
to be the man that is ashamed of himself and is confessing to his son how for
the fake attitudes have developed. The sixth and seventh stanza shows the
regret as he says….
"I want to be what I used
to be
when I was like you’ I want”.
Showing that he wants to be honest and truthful again.
Mystic Drum The Mystic Drum is Okara’s love lyric. The Mystic Drum evinces a
tripartite ritual pattern of imitation from innocence through intimacy to
experience. By comparison to the way of zone as manifested in the experience of
Zen master, Chin Yuan Wei Asian this pattern resolves itself into an emotional
and epistemic logical journey from conventional knowledge through more intimate
knowledge to learn of experience empowers the lover to understand that beneath
the surface attractiveness of what we know very well may lie an abyss of the
unknown and unknowable belching darkness. But experience teaches us at this
stage of substantial knowledge not to expose ourselves to the dangers of being
beholden to this unknown and unknowable reality by keeping our passions under
strict control including the prudent decision to ‘pack’ the ‘Mystic Drum’ of
our innocence and evanescence making sure that it does not ‘beat so loud
anymore’.
Okara mentions in one of his
interviews that “The Mystic Drum” is essentially a have poem: “This was a lady
I loved and she coyly was not responding directly but, I adored her. Her
demeanor seemed to mask her true feelings; at a distance, she seemed adoring
however on coming closer, she was after all, not what she seemed.” This lady
may stand as an emblem that represents the lure of western life; how it seemed
appealing at first but later seemed distasteful to the poet.
The Mystic Drum and Lines:
“The mystic drum
beat in my inside
and fishes
danced in the rivers
and men and
women danced on land
to the rhythm of
my drum”
“But standing
behind a tree
with leaves
around her waist
she only smiled
with a shake of her
head.”
“The drum in African poems
generally stands for the spiritual pulse of traditional African life. The poet
asserts that first as the drum beat inside him fishes danced in the rivers and
man and women danced on the land to the rhythm of the drum. But standing behind
the tree there stood an outsider who smiled with an air of indifference at the
richness of their culture; however the drum still continued to beat rippling
the air with quickened tempo compelling the dead to dance and sing with their
shadows. The ancestral glory overpowers other considerations: so powerful is the
Mystic drum, that it brings back even the dead alive. The rhythm of the drum is
the aching for an ideal Nigerian state of harmony. The outsider is used in the
poem for western imperialism that was looked down upon anything Eastern,
nonwestern, alien and therefore incomprehensible for their own good as the
other.
The African culture is so much
in tune with nature that the Mystic drum invokes the sun, the moon, the river
gods and the trees began to dance. The gap finally gets bridged between
humanity and nature, the animal world and human world, the hydrosphere and
lithosphere that fishes turned men, and men became fishes. But later as the
Mystic drum stopped beating, men became men, and fishes became fishes. Life now
became dry, logical and mechanical thanks to western scientific imperialism and
everything found its place. Leaves started sprouting on the woman she started
to flourish on the land. Gradually her roots struck the ground. Spreading a
kind of parched rationalism smoke issued from her lips and her lips parted in
smile.
The term ‘smoke’ is also
suggestive of the pollution caused by industrialization and also the clouding
of morals ultimately the speaker was left in belching darkness, completely cut
off from the heart of his culture and he packed the Mystic drum not to beat
loudly anymore. The ‘belching darkness’ alludes to the futility and hollowness
the imposed existence. The outside at first only has an objective role standing
behind a tree. Eventually, she intrudes and tries to behave their spiritual
life. The leaves around her waist are very much suggestive of eve who adorned
the same after losing her innocence. Leaves stop growing on the trees but only
sprout on her head implying deforestation. The refrain reminds us again and
again that this Eve turns out to be the eve of Nigerian damnation. Rukhaya M.k.
Were I to Choose
“When Adam broke the stone
and red streams reged down to
gather in the womb,
an angel calmed the storm”,
“And I, the breath mewed
in Cain, unbliniking gaze
at the world without
from the brink of an age”.
Gabriel is immersed in folk tradition and ballad
influences of tradition and culture are found in his poem. His poems are
regional as well as universal. His poems are sometimes lyrical and full of
music. The poem ‘Were I to choose’ is reminiscent of yeast poem called “Adam’s
Curse.” The poet has tried to compare Adam’s toiling in the soil with the
Negros working in the soil. They broke the stone themselves which was their
very foundation. The red streams are symbolized for the multilingual diversity
that reaches the womb Africa. Cain in this poem metaphorically represents the
next generation. ‘I’ in Okara’s poems generally refers to the tribe. The poet
implies that he is currently imprisoned in the present generation and the
crisis of identity of generation. The earlier generations gaze would not go
beyond; but he does and to him the world is looked at from the brink.
The poem is written in 1950, the period of Nigerian
independence, the poet sees his ancestorstheir slavery, their groping lips, the
breasts molted by heartrending suffering. The poet’s vision goes outside and
backgrounds. The memory is like a thread going through his ears. The poet
compares Cain with modern man, Cain was a wonderer and if he was caught by
anybody, he would be definitely slain. Similar is the condition of the modern
uneducated man who does not pass any aim. The poet, at the age of 31, is
multilingual and thinks about the medium of his instruction. The tower of Babel
symbolizes unity. When the ‘Tower of Babel’ was constructed, God
cursed the concerned people. The people wanted to
construct a great tower signifying oneness and around it people would stand
united. They wanted to speak the same language but God despised themact. There
is no proper foundation or structure mremaining. His world has deteriorated to
‘world of bones’.
"And O of
this dark halo
were the tired
head free.
And when the
harmattan
of days has
parched the throat
and skin, and
sucked the
fever of
the head away".
Then the massive dark descends, and flesh and bone are
razed. And (O were I to choose) I’d cheatthe worms and silence seek in stone”.
The poet now wants to free himself from the imprisonment of this dark ‘halo’
who is generally considered as ‘blessed; but seems dark to him. His conflict is
not being able to choose from the languages. He is torn between worlds. The
poet likens his predicament with mingling with dust during the month December
to February in Nigeria. The throat is dry and he is unable to speak out. He is
delirious ass the flames of torture are burning his existence. The colonial
period has made the poet an amalgam of European and African cultures, and now
he finds himself in a no man’s land. He relishes the idea of resolving the
crisis by seeking refuge in the silence of the grave. He then would be cheating
the worms because he would enjoy that state of affairs.
Conclusion:
Gabriel Okara in the above discussed poems discusses the
same problem of loss of his ancient heritage due to the invasion of western
culture. He considers the invasion as an enemy whom it is not easy to conquer.
During to the British imperialism the South African culture, the poet’s ancient
heritage was ruined. The poet is worried about his country men who are torn
between the two cultures but cannot accept one.
