Use of Language in Out of Africa by Grace Nichols :: essays research papers

This poem takes us on a journey of decorate Nichols life, from her ancestry in Africa to her migration from the Caribbean to England. Language features much(prenominal)(prenominal) as extended metaphors and repeat of phrases help to lay aside this journey flowing.The first language feature we come across is the repetition of the words out of and into. The phrases be repeated help to link old and present. The first stanza repeats Out of This talks about Graces ancestry, i.e. flood tide out of before her time. The second and third stanza Into is about her life and her past. Grace lived in the Caribbean and moved to England so the into refers to her life experiences. Personification is used widely throughout the poem, an example of this is the avatar of the word fetch. Out of Africa of the suckling. The word mother is not specifically mentioned in the line but sucking refers to the race between mother and child. The second reference to mother is a personification of the ear th, Out of Africa of the first rains, the first mother. This personification is symbolic and has references to the past, the first rains being those rains of a long time ago. The personification of the trampled nightfall tongues, can be taken on two levels. (It is also an extended metaphor) Trampled autumn tongues could be taken literally i.e. leaves being trampled on or metaphorically. The leaves could be reference to the tongues of the slaves (slaves tongues would be cut off if they were caught speaking between from each one other in their native tongue.)The structure of the poem is also interesting, in that location are three stanzas, the first and second stanza are equal in length but the third is slightly longer. The third stanza is the longest because that is where she is vitality now and has been the longest.The narrative voice in the poem is the voice of the African people. The tone is sarcastic and hast a hint of mocking to it, with parts such as baleful tourist glair and happy Creole so-called mentality. These lines appearing the ignorance of the white tourists that come to the Caribbean expecting everyone else (Caribbean people) to be happy just because they are on holiday. This is a white persons stereotype of the Caribbean and so the tourists are labeled as having a baleful glair.