Nontsizi Mgqwetho A Red Justet Address Analysis

Nontsizi Mgqwetho is a Xhosa poet who addresses both Christianity and African traditions and beliefs in her poetry, and in A Red Blanket Addresses Christians it is no different. There is said that “In the absence of shared cultural and religious beliefs, a sense of community is lost”; in this essay there will be referred to the feelings and concerns of the speaker in the light of this statement. The attitudes of the speakers towards Western education will also be discussed, as well as the use of language to that contributes to this.
In the first stanza, the speaker criticises the Christians for not knowing where their daughters are and that their daughters are out frolicking around, but at the same time they are “searching for marriage”. Stanza 1 can be linked to line 18, where the speaker says that “You’re Christians by day, hyenas by night”, since in the day the daughters are searching for husbands and acting like Christians, but “cut capers in Newclare till all hours of the night”. This may refer to the fact that they cannot decide who they want to be and therefore a
Line 18 refers to how the Xhosa people are “hyenas” at night, but during the day they act like Christians. In stanza 7, the speaker refers to this again by saying that these Christians “discarded skin garments and dressed up like whites”. According to the speaker this act is also for nothing since the “whites won’t touch a drop of yours”, when s/he explains that they get drunk of the white’s alcohol. The speaker tries to tell these people that the Western society does not care about them that they should rather stay close to their roots because they are all living a lie. The speaker refers to this act again in stanza 8, but saying that the people are “clothing your shame in the name of