In this essay I am going to talk about how anger and frustration is linked between two poems. The two poems are called ‘Nothing’s Changed’ and ‘Half-Caste’. I am going to explain four topics about each poem. These are: language, discrimination, culture and racism. Each one I will explain how they link with the poems. For example racism shares a main part in both poems because they are both about inequality and difference. Both Poems are autobiographical so both authors have had their own experience meaning that the anger shown is very descriptive.
The first topic I am going to talk about is the racism that is linked between the two poems. First I will look at the poem ‘Half-caste’ then ‘Nothing’s changed’. I would say that ‘Half-Caste’ is quite an angry poem because the poem John Agard has written is about difference. It is about difference because it mentions the word ‘half-caste’ and the word is used to describe people born of parents of a different colour. This word can be used as an insult against a different race, which shows racism.
Here is an example that shows how racism is shown “Yu mean when Picasso mix red and green”. He talks about the colours and how they combine together to produce a new whole, which is different. But the whole he talks about is precious and unique. People call him half-caste because he is different from other people and lacks equality because he is different from the rest, this is racist. John Agard shows anger because he doesn’t want people to insult him. I can tell this by the tone of the poem because he asks the same question over and over again. “Wha yu mean when yu say half-caste”. I would say this seems like he is annoyed.
In Nothing’s Changed the racism is the same as In Half Caste. The poem is about Tatamkhulu Afrika and about his life in Cape Town’s District 6. I find this poem racist because it says about the new, up-market a whites only inn. There’s a lot about the up-market that is racial
and the first thing I notice is when it says white’s only inn. Maybe this is linked with half caste and saying that T.A is a half-caste and is different. Another racial expression I found about the up-market is about the glass. “I press my nose to the clear panes” The glass in Nothing’s changed represents many things but here it is acting like a barrier that you cannot go through, I think the glass helps describes the racism and show how T.A feels.
The next topic I am going to talk about is the language shown in the poems. In ‘Half-Caste’ the language spoken is called patois, which is a blend language. I think John Agard decided to write in patois because he wanted the reader to know who he really was as an individual, as a whole. The language in ‘Half-Caste’ makes the poem seem conversational because it mentions ‘Yu’ a lot, so it’s like the poem is talking to you. It makes the reader aware of what’s happening and brings attention. In the poem some words that are said describe the anger and frustration such as ‘ah rass’, the word is defined as an expression of disgust and is from the language patois. This is a sign of anger and frustration in the poem.
In ‘Nothing’s changed’ the language shown is quite different. T.A uses angry language to express his feelings about the situation going on. He uses this angry language because he has experienced racial discrimination and he uses anger to describe how he felt and what happened at district 6. “Hands burn for a stone, a bomb, to shiver down the glass.” This quotation is from the end of the poem and it means that the boy wants to get a stone or a bomb and to throw it at the glass so he can get in to the inn. The boy cannot get into the inn though because is not allowed, he is not allowed because he is different and because they are racist to him. This quote says a lot about T.A’s anger against people who are racist. Between the two poems the language features shown in both of them are a bit differently shown but the explanation and meaning of the anger in both poems is about the same.
