Jasmine Mason
Refugee Mother and child by Chinua Achebe
No Madonna and Child could touch
that picture of a mother’s tenderness
for a son she soon would have to forget.
The air was heavy with odours
No Madonna and Child could touch
that picture of a mother’s tenderness
for a son she soon would have to forget.
The air was heavy with odours
of diarrhoea of unwashed children
with washed-out ribs and dried-up
bottoms struggling in laboured
steps behind blown empty bellies. Most
with washed-out ribs and dried-up
bottoms struggling in laboured
steps behind blown empty bellies. Most
mothers there had long ceased
to care but not this one; she held
a ghost smile between her teeth
and in her eyes the ghost of a mother’s
pride as she combed the rust-coloured
hair left on his skull and then –
to care but not this one; she held
a ghost smile between her teeth
and in her eyes the ghost of a mother’s
pride as she combed the rust-coloured
hair left on his skull and then –
singing in her eyes – began carefully
to part it… In another life this
would have been a little daily
act of no consequence before his
breakfast and school; now she
to part it… In another life this
would have been a little daily
act of no consequence before his
breakfast and school; now she
did it like putting flowers
on a tiny grave.
on a tiny grave.
Biography on Chinua Achebe
Chinua Achebe is an Nigerian author. His full name is Albert Chinualumogu Achebe. He was born on November 16, 1930 in Ogidi, Nigeria and died on March 21, 2013 in Boston Massachusetts. Achebe went and graduated from University College Ibadan. He had wrote over 20 books. In fact we've read one of his famous books Things Fall Apart (1958) which had more than 10 million copies and been translated into more than 50 languages. Because of his success he had recieve multiple awards.
https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/chinua-achebe
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Chinua-Achebe#googDisableSync
Analyzing the poem
Figurative language: This poem mostly doesn't have any rhythm which means it doesn't have a lot of unity. "A son she soon would forget" proves that this mother is trying her hardest not to forget her son but eventually is going to have to. Know how bad this is no mother or child should have to go through this. "she did it like putting flowers on a tiny grave" shows how hard this mother didn't was to bury her son but she knew what was best for both of them.
Tone: The tone of this poem shows how the author grew up. How Nigeria was when he was young. He suffered this and i wrote about him and his mother was a refugee.
Theme: Love will never grow old
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ReplyDeleteI think Chinua Achebe said, "for a son she soon would have to forget," because the society the mother and son live in has a predictable future of early death. Despite knowing his death was likely to happen, the mother still loves and cherishes her son. The flowers put on the grave are contrasting symbols of life and death. This imagery then adds to the tone of the whole poem. I think the tone is very tender, but still full of longing and distress.
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