Literary Analysis
Multicultural Literature Analysis Paper
ENG/157
March 21. 2013
Rachel Hawley
Multicultural Literature Analysis Paper
Literary works in which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm. This is poetry many would not look at poetry in a literary sense as they would a biography or a literary text. Indeed poetry is also literature that is more condensed and consists of a language used in a manner that can be felt by the reader this can differ from ordinary literature. Throughout the world from America to Jamaica there are multicultural issues which many people have in common and do not realize. In the poem “dis Poem” by Mutabaruka and “For My People” by Margaret Walker are a great example of authors from two different worlds that deal with similar problems such as oppression, black history, and modern achievement of their people.
Scott Williams says “Walker’s For My People is not only historical, but also, and primarily historical… “Historical” in this, sense a metaphor for unfolding of divine will… In this view of things human doings are only illusions of a counterfeit autonomy, characters are moving and are moved under aegis of a higher hidden authority” (Williams, 2006). Margaret Walker was born in Birmingham Alabama. For My People was a about the struggle of the African American people starting from slavery and the challenge to refashion a world in their own image, the image of true egalitarian whose faith and values were forced in the crucible oppression. Margaret Walker use of free style verse in her poem with no set metrical pattern brings strength to the poem with the constant repetition. “…washing ironing cooking scrubbing sewing mending hoeing plowing digging planting pruning patching dragging…” (Walker, 2001) This verse was written with no commas, no pauses, without any hesitation. The language and style used depicts a certain image in the readers mind. The image of an
ENG/157
March 21. 2013
Rachel Hawley
Multicultural Literature Analysis Paper
Literary works in which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm. This is poetry many would not look at poetry in a literary sense as they would a biography or a literary text. Indeed poetry is also literature that is more condensed and consists of a language used in a manner that can be felt by the reader this can differ from ordinary literature. Throughout the world from America to Jamaica there are multicultural issues which many people have in common and do not realize. In the poem “dis Poem” by Mutabaruka and “For My People” by Margaret Walker are a great example of authors from two different worlds that deal with similar problems such as oppression, black history, and modern achievement of their people.
Scott Williams says “Walker’s For My People is not only historical, but also, and primarily historical… “Historical” in this, sense a metaphor for unfolding of divine will… In this view of things human doings are only illusions of a counterfeit autonomy, characters are moving and are moved under aegis of a higher hidden authority” (Williams, 2006). Margaret Walker was born in Birmingham Alabama. For My People was a about the struggle of the African American people starting from slavery and the challenge to refashion a world in their own image, the image of true egalitarian whose faith and values were forced in the crucible oppression. Margaret Walker use of free style verse in her poem with no set metrical pattern brings strength to the poem with the constant repetition. “…washing ironing cooking scrubbing sewing mending hoeing plowing digging planting pruning patching dragging…” (Walker, 2001) This verse was written with no commas, no pauses, without any hesitation. The language and style used depicts a certain image in the readers mind. The image of an