African Literature
Semester:
4
Roll
No: 32
Enrollment
No: 2069108420180052
Email
Id: sagarvaghela2020@gmail.com
Paper
14: African Literature
Topic:
Critical Analysis of Chinua Achebe's Refugee Mother and Child
Batch:
2017-19
Submitted
To: S.B.Gardi Department of English MKBU
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Introduction
:
Chinua
Achebe was a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic. His first novel
Things Fall Apart (1958), often considered his best, is the most widely read
book in modern African literature. He won the Man Booker International Prize in
2007.
Chinua
Achebe was very well-known for his work on post-colonialism; his upbringing in southeaster
Nigeria made his childhood a first hand experience into the world of
colonialism, and has fuelled such works as Things Fall Apart, the most
well-known work of African literature today. Most don’t even associate the name
Achebe with his poetry, and yet poems such as Refugee Mother and Child prove
that the incredible talent Achebe possessed with the written word did not end
with novels alone.
Refugee
Mother and Child Analysis
Stanza
1
Refugee
Mother and Child is written in a very free-form kind of style. The phrasing and
grammar of each line makes it feel as though this work is only a work of poetry
because of the spacing — you would write, for instance, that “No Madonna and
Child could touch that picture of a mother’s tenderness for a son she would
soon have to forget;” It is a complete sentence. And yet, it flows extremely
well as a poem. The language itself is what is poetic. Use of the Madonna and
Child imagery — referencing the popular imagery of the Virgin Mary holding her
Son in her arms — immediately contrasts a beautiful image with a horrible one.
To say that the beautiful image cannot touch the terrible one can be telling of
a number of things. Perhaps it means that religion is of no comfort, or perhaps
it means that the most beautiful image in the world cannot compare to a
mother’s love.
There
is an interesting spacing aspect of this poem that it presented in this verse —
the beginning of the next verse is placed here instead, in the form of “the air
was heavy with odours.” Alone, this is barely a complete thought, though it
does fill in a few imagery-based details on our setting.
Stanza
2
The
continuation of the aforementioned line fills in the setting of them poem
incredibly well. While the first verse of the poem established a truly sad
atmosphere in “a son she soon would have to forget,” the entirety of this verse
is dedicated to filling in at atmosphere with reality. This is the world this
mother lives in — “blown empty bellies” — “washed-out ribs” — “dried-up
bottoms” — “struggling in laboured steps.” The imagery is powerful. Each line
brings on a new horror for the reader to contemplate, a horror that, for this
mother, and for each child, is reality in its most real form.
Stanza
3
The
narrator goes on to tell us that for most mothers, the harsh reality hardens
them; the act of childbirth is followed by the certain knowledge of coming
death and horror, and so they simply stop caring for the lives of their
children… they simply can’t afford to. This is not true, we are told, for the
mother who forms our central character. Ghostly imagery is used here — the
ghost of a smile, the ghost of her pride — to show that the mother is still
heavily affected by the need to not care, but still fights through for her son.
Stanza
4 and 5
The
entirety of Refugee Mother and Child comes together in these last two verses,
and there are a great many ways to interpret it, all of them very sad in
nature. This verse highlights the harsh reality of a great many things that are
taken for granted very often in the world; how something as simple as combing
the hair of a young son can be a daily ritual in one country, and be equally as
symbolic as decorating a grave in another. The analogy is frighteningly
powerful, and creates an image that is simply impossible to not contemplate
deeply… which is undoubtedly the intention of the wording.
Historical
Context
Chinua
Achebe was born to the Igbo of southeastern Nigeria in 1930, putting him in
Nigeria at the exact right time for British colonialism to begin dictating the
lives of the Igbo in the form of the Royal Niger Company. A number of events
that took place during his colonial education were later recorded in his works;
there are a number of parallels, for instance, between things he observed as a
child and events that take place in Things Fall Apart, his first novel.
Achebe’s
style was often to write about what he saw in the world around him, and given
the strength of the language, it is more than likely that this is the case for
Refugee Mother and Child. It was written during the Nigerian Civil War, an
unfortunate aftermath of the colonialism that had influenced the area. During
this time, Achebe mostly wrote poetry, finding it an easier task to manage
during the intense period of war.
It
is difficult to imagine it — a young Chinua Achebe walking around his hometown,
breathing in foul air and watching the hearts of mothers harden towards their
children. Colonialism, poverty, and war had all taken immense tolls on the
Nigerian people, and they were in suffering. Achebe’s poem here serves as a
written analysis of that time period, a reflection based on what he saw that
draws its strength from the imagery and language by painting a picture of words
for the reader, one that brings suffering to life in a way that not many poems
do.
A
significant part of the strength of this poem is the realization of how real it
is. So many poems rely on metaphor and distant imagery that when a poem this
grounded in reality is read, it almost feels like a shock — how many famous
poems talk about the diarrheic odours of dying children with such blunt
language? But this is its strength — the realization, the certain knowledge
just by reading the poem, that what Refugee Mother and Child describes is very,
very real.
Chinua
Achebe is a great Nigerian novelist poet and short story writer. His first novel “Things Fall Apart” has been
translated into 45 languages. His poem
“Refugee Mother and Child” is a celebration of motherhood. It is a refugee camp
somewhere in Africa. The poet gives us a realistic picture of a mother and her
child. Hundreds of poor people are thrown out of their homes due to political
disturbances or natural calamities. The refugees are in a miserable condition.
There are innumerable mothers and children in the same miserable condition in
the refugee camp. Their children are slowly dying of poverty and diseases.
But
the poet draws our attention to a particular mother and her child. They are
compared with St.Mary holding infant Jesus in her arms. Madonna loves her child
because Jesus is the saviour of mankind and the son of God. The world worships
her and her child. Juxtaposed with this, the poet introduces a poor ordinary,
unknown mother and child. The mother knows her child is slowly dying. It is of
no use caring for him. Other mothers in the camp know this truth about their
children and so they are careless about their dying children. They don’t want
to further waste their time and energy and love for the dying children. It is
futile for them. So they are passive. The air was heavy with odours of
diarrhoea of unwashed children.
References
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