A FAR CRY FROM AFRICA (Derek Wallcot)

Author Introduction: Walcott was also a renowned playwright. In 1971 he won an Obie Award for his play
Dream on Monkey Mountain, which the New Yorker described as “a poem in dramatic form.” Walcott’s plays
generally treat aspects of the West Indian experience, often dealing with the socio-political and epistemological
implications of post-colonialism and drawing upon various genres such as the fable, allegory, folk, and morality
play. With his twin brother, he cofounded the Trinidad Theater Workshop in 1950; in 1981, while teaching at
Boston University, he founded the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre. He also taught at Columbia University, Yale
University, Rutgers University, and Essex University in England. In addition to his Nobel Prize, Walcott’s honors
included a MacArthur Foundation “genius” award, a Royal Society of Literature Award, and, in 1988, the Queen’s
Medal for Poetry. He was an honorary member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. He died
in 2017.

Summary of the poem: The poem "A Far Cry from Africa" belongs to post colonial poetry. Mainly the poem
discusses the events of the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya in the early 1950s. It was a bloody battle during the 1950
between the European settlers and the native Kikuyu tribes in Kenya. Kikuyu was the largest and most educated
tribe in Kenya. As the British people invaded more and more their land they outrageously reacted. The Kenyan
tribes rebelled against the British who stole the motherland of them. The rebellion was under a secret organization
called Mau Mau. It is estimated a large number of Kikuyu as well as whites were slaughtered during the process.

The poem starts with the painful jarring harsh experience of the rebellion that changed the tranquil peaceful
setting of the country. The nation itself compared to an animal, as it indicates it is an animal like a lion. “tawny pelt”
And how Kikuyu started the bloody battle. The Kikuyu are compared to flies who are feeding on blood. Next we are
informed the aftermath of the rebellion. The poet describes that the country before the conflict was a ‘paradise’ and
with an ironical comment he indicates the death, inhumanity and destruction occurred in the land. There is the
juxtaposition of the conflict against something divine with the image of corpses scattered through a paradise.

The worms that can be seen as the ultimate emblem of stagnation and decay, cries at the worthless death.
Sarcastically poet indicates how the humans are reduced to statistics. And at the same time though scholars justify
the presence of white men in Africa and the process of civilizing the natives, the poet indicates the fact that it was a
failure with the brutal death of the small white child and his family. People behave like animals ‘savages’ hints and
remind us the persecution endured by the Jews. Jews were killed in millions due to their ethnicity during the time of
Hitler. Though the time and the place is different the same kind of situations repeat in the world time to time. Next
the poet creates a picture of white men in searching for natives who are hiding behind the bushes. The sound of
‘ibises’ hints a bad omen. Again the repetition is shown through the word ‘wheeled’. The civilized men thrived on
conquering others. This process of violence and conquering each other indicates the law of the jungle. The violence
of ‘beast on beast’ can justify according to the law of nature, the law of jungle. Yet it cannot be applied to the
‘upright man’ who are stretching out themselves to reach the ‘divinity’.

Apart from the task of stretching themselves to reach ‘divinity’ they end up with ‘inflicting pain’ which is
killing and which is the law of jungle; killing for prey. They call for the massacre they create by killing as war.
Ironically, wars between people are described as following the beat of a drum — an instrument made of an animal
hide stretched over a cylinder. Though the natives think the act of killing white men brings them ‘courage’ it ends up
with fear. Moreover the poet emphasizes the fact that though the natives justify their task mentioning it as a ‘brutish
necessity’ and considering it as a national cause they just clean their hands with ‘the napkin of dirty cause’. So the
poet suggests the fact that the natives’ cause is dirty and ugly though they consider it as right and nationwide. He
sees a comparison with the West Indians who had their share of harsh experiences with Spain. The fight is just as the
gorilla wrestles with superman. The gorilla in this context is compared to natives and superman is compared to white
men. The last two lines indicate the situation of the poet, as he belongs to both cultures how he feels inferiority
regarding the situation. The mixed heritage of the poet makes him unable to decide to which he should be partial.
The title itself too indicates the state of mind conflict of the poet, a cry from a great distance away and moreover it
shows the alienation and the inferiority of the poet. The poem ends with a picture of violence and cruelty and with
the idea of searching for identity.

Historical context: Derek Walcott’s “A Far Cry from Africa,” published in 1962, is a painful and jarring depiction
of ethnic conflict and divided loyalties. The opening images of the poem are drawn from accounts of the Mau Mau
Uprising, an extended and bloody battle during the 1950s between European settlers and the native Kikuyu tribe in
what is now the republic of Kenya. In the early twentieth century, the first white settlers arrived in the region,
forcing the Kikuyu people off of their tribal lands. Europeans took control of farmland and the government,
relegating the Kikuyu to a subservient position. One faction of the Kikuyu people formed Mau Mau, a terrorist
organization intent on purging all European influence from the country, but less strident Kikuyus attempted to either
remain neutral or help the British defeat Mau Mau.

The ongoings in Kenya magnified an internal strife within the poet concerning his own mixed heritage. Walcott has
both African and European roots; his grandmothers were both black, and both grandfathers were white. In addition,
at the time the poem was written, the poet’s country of birth, the island of St. Lucia, was still a colony of Great
Britain. While Walcott opposes colonialism and would therefore seem to be sympathetic to a revolution with an
anticolonial cause, he has passionate reservations about Mau Mau: they are, or are reported to be, extremely violent
—to animals, whites, and Kikuyu perceived as traitors to the Mau Mau cause.

As Walcott is divided in two, so too is the poem. The first two stanzas refer to the Kenyan conflict, while
the second two address the war within the poet-as-outsider/insider, between his roles as blood insider but
geographical outsider to the Mau Mau Uprising. The Mau Mau Uprising, which began in 1952, was put down—
some say in 1953, 1956, or 1960—without a treaty, yet the British did leave Kenya in 1963. Just as the uprising was
never cleanly resolved, Walcott, at least within the poem, never resolves his conflict about whose side to take.

Setting of the Poem:

1. In the idiomatic sense of a far cry, meaning "very different." In this sense, something that is "A Far Cry
From Africa" is very different from Africa.
2. This idiom can be interpreted as saying that the speaker is physically very far away from Africa. Though
the speaker has African ancestry, perhaps the speaker doesn't actually live in Africa, but lives in England,
America, or a Caribbean nation.
3. The title can be read literally as a distant call of distress coming from Africa. This, of course, summons all
the troubles caused by the Mau Mau rebellion as the speaker learns about them from abroad.

Rhyme scheme and Meter: "A Far Cry From Africa" has 33 lines broken into three stanzas of increasing
length. Stanza 1 is 10 lines long, stanza 2 is 11 lines long, and stanza 3 is 12 lines long. These stanza uses a
flexible rhyme scheme and meter. The poem's form of increasing stanza length creates a kind of middle ground
between formal verse and free verse. While a casual observer might not even notice that the stanzas are different
lengths, thus assuming that this poem has a pretty traditional idea of poetic form, closer observation reveals this not
to be the case. This creates a kind of hidden flexibility, then; it's as if the speaker has invented a new form within the
auspices of older forms. Or, at the very least, as if the speaker is continually pushing against the walls of poetic
constraint. The poem is a written in a very flexible form of iambic pentameter. And the rhyme scheme is ABCAC.

Anaphora: It is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is repeated at the beginning of the verses. The poem
shows the use of “How can I” in the last two verses.
Assonance: Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds in the same line, such as the sound of /a/ in “Corpses are
scattered through a paradise” and the sound of /o/ in “Only the worm, colonel of carrion, cries.”
Alliteration: Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds in the same line in quick succession, such as the
sound of /c/ in “carrion, cries.”
Consonance: Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds in the same line, such as the sound of /w/ in “A
wind is ruffling the tawny pelt” and the sound of /s/ and /b/ in “The violence of beast on beast is read.”
Imagery: Imagery is used to make readers perceive things involving their five senses. Derek Walcott uses imagery
in this poem, such as “Corpses are scattered through a paradise”, “What is that to the white child hacked in bed?”
and “Threshed out by beaters, the long rushes break.”
Irony: It means to the contradictory meanings of the words used in different contexts. For example, the verse, such
as “upright man / Seeks his divinity by inflicting pain” shows how an upright person seeking divinity when he wants
to cause pain to others. This is an apparent example of irony.
Metaphor: It is a figure of speech in which an implied comparison is made between objects that are different in
nature. The poet used different metaphors, such as the colonel of carrion is a worm in military terms.
Personification: It means to use human attributes for inanimate things or ideas. The poet personified necessity
saying that it wipes its hands on the napkin.