Imagery in poems from different cultures

Poems from different cultures: Essay

Write about two of the poems which use imagery effectively

Many of the poems use imagery effectively; however ‘This Room’ by Imtiaz Dharker uses a great deal of imagery effectively to get across an emotion quite difficult to put into words. Another poem that uses imagery effectively is ‘Half-Caste’ by John Agard, he uses it to portray how people prejudge him because of his ethnicity.

In ‘This Room’ Dharker used many different language techniques to build up an image in the reader’s mind. One method that is very evident is the use of metaphors; such as ‘From dark corners chairs are rising up to crash through clouds’ and ‘This room is breaking out of itself’. Dharker does not intend for the reader to believe that these things are happening, but still builds up this image of movement, noise as extraordinary and improbable things happen to a fairly mundane, average room. He puts this image in the reader’s mind as a way to help them understand the extreme, unrestrained joy and passion that he is writing about, where the whole world seems different and full of movement and ordinary items such as furniture seem to be moving and dancing because the person viewing it feels such happiness.

Another technique used by Dharker to paint this picture is onomatopoeia, which he uses this to add noise to the image. For instance he writes about pots and pans ‘bang’ and ‘clang’ as they fly around the room. This is important because similarly to nothing seems to be still when a person feels this unrepressed joy, also it does not seem to be quiet. Using onomatopoeia is a very clever way of illustrating the noise that the person hears even if it does not perhaps exist.

Dharker also uses structural abnormalities and a strange use or lack of use of punctuation to emphasise how extraordinary the image is. The last line of the poem is the best example of the strange structure: ‘my hands are outside, clapping.’ This is on a paragraph of its own, probably to emphasise the detachment of the hands from the rest of the body, this is a strange image that illustrates just how extraordinary things seem to the person who is experiencing this extreme happiness. The strange use of punctuation also emphasises this point, and also the fact that there is very little punctuation at all represents that the person is carefree and adds to the fluidity of the poem, which suggests that the person want this feeling to go on and on and never to end.

The imagery in ‘Half-Caste’ creates a very different image that illustrates a very different emotion and message. Almost all of the imagery is based around the word ‘half’ because it is part of the phrase half-caste, a term that people may use to describe Agard and a term that he himself dislikes. The most evident example in this poem is the way he creates an image of himself with only half a body, he sarcastically writes that he only has ‘half-a-hand’ and ‘half-a-eye’ and that he only dreams ‘half-a-dream’ and casts ‘half-a-shadow’. He creates this strange image of himself almost to ridicule the people that use the term half-caste, by creating this absurd image he does it in quite a humorous way, however the image has a very serious message behind it. He shows that he feels like people are insulting him, and trying to make him seem inferior to them as he only has half a body. Similarly to Dharker, Agard also uses many metaphors to create this image, as he says he only has half-an-eye when that is not actually the case. However the two images that they create and what they represent are very different; because the image in ‘This Room’ is abnormal with ordinary items doing extraordinary things to represent a person’s unrestrained happiness. However in ‘Half-Caste’ the image is still very strange but it is of half a body representing people’s prejudice and naivety; a very different image to that of ‘This room’.

Strangely Agard uses this image to make the people who use the term half-caste to seem to be the ones who are ‘half’. He does this by telling them that if they come to him with an open mind he says he will ‘tell yu de other half of my story’. This makes the people using the term ‘half-caste’ seem inferior because with closed minds they only see half the world and half a person’s personality so they are missing out. This is Agard developing the image and using it to illustrate different points, something which Dharker does not do in ‘This Room’. However one thing that Dharker does that Agard does not is to add sound to his image, he does this by using onomatopoeia, a method that Agard does not employ in ‘Half-Caste’.

Agard does create another very similar image, one that may just be considered an extension of the previous image or perhaps not imagery at all. He tells them to come back ‘wid de whole of yu eye’ and ‘de whole of your mind’. This may not be considered imagery because people expect them to have whole eyes and minds however what he writes has another meaning, emphasizing the previous image and also the main reason that he puts it in the poem is that he is also asking them to open their mind and their eyes so they can see the whole of him and understand all of him, and the rest of the world. Imtiaz Dharker does not extend his image like this in ‘This Room’; however Agard does not change the structure of the poem to emphasise the image, something that Dharker does do in ‘This Room’.

It is clear that both poets use imagery very differently to illustrate different points and emotions in their poems, however it is also clear that they both use it very effectively. This is evident as Imtiaz Dharker puts across a very difficult idea and emotion to put into words, and he does this using imagery. John Agard also uses imagery very cleverly to humorously ridicule people who prejudge and to try to persuade them to open their, mind.

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