Use of Language in Out of Africa by Grace Nichols

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This poem takes us on a journey of Grace Nichols life, from her ancestry in Africa to her migration from the Caribbean to England. Language features such as extended metaphor’s and repetition of phrases help to keep this journey flowing.

The first language feature we come across is the repetition of the words ‘out of’ and ‘into’. The phrases being repeated help to link past and present. The first stanza repeats ‘Out of…’ This talks about Grace’s ancestry, i.e. coming 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 personification of the word mother. ‘ Out of Africa of the suckling.’ The word mother is not specifically mentioned in the line but sucking refers to the relationship between mother and child. The second reference to mother is a personification of the earth, ‘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 autumn 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 each other in their native tongue.)

The structure of the poem is also interesting, there 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 living 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 show 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.

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