Walcott A Far Cry From Africa PDF

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My notes for the poem Walcott, A Far Cry From Africa, a poem that reflects on the english language in a post-colonial workd...

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Walcott, A Far Cry From Africa 

The poem is set against the backdrop of the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya, which was extremely violent. (‘Corpses are scattered through a paradise’ line 4).

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Walcott was born in Saint Lucia; in this poem he describes feeling split and torn.

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He describes the violence of ‘this Africa’ as something he cannot support or feel affiliated with: ‘How can I face such slaughter and be cool?’ (line 33)

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He describes the ‘love’ he has for the English language – but he has ‘cursed’ the recklessness and thoughtlessness of British colonialism (‘The drunken officer of British rule’). = the heritage of UK lit he loves, but he has ‘cursed’ the recklessness and thoughtlessness and chaos of British colonialism

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The poem ends with questions without answers, presenting an insoluble dilemma of troubled identity.

poems ends with a series of questions, like his identity, show an image of being devided, poem describes the violent of the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya, ‘A new English’ 

‘my answer to the question Can an African ever learn English well enough to be able to use it effectively in creative writing? is certainly yes. If on the other hand you ask. Can he ever learn to use it like a native speaker? I should say, I hope not. It is neither necessary nor desirable for him to be able to do so. The price a world language must be prepared to pay is submission to many different kinds of use. The African writer should aim to use English in a way that brings out his message best without altering the language to the extent that its value as a medium of international exchange will be lost. […] The real question is not whether Africans could write in English but whether they ought to. Is it right that a man should abandon his mother tongue for someone else's? It looks like a dreadful betrayal and produces a guilty feeling. But, for me, there is no other choice. I have been given this language and I intend to use it. […] I feel that the English language will be able to carry the weight of my African experience. But it will have to be a new English, still in full communion with its ancestral home but altered to suit its new African surroundings.’ (Achebe)

African will use English, but it will have to be a new English,...