An Analysis of Chimes of Slience
Wole Soyinka is a Nigerian playwright, and the author of the prose poem "Chimes of Silence". In order to describe his experience in solitary confinement Soyinka uses descriptive language involving his vision to better enlighten the reader to his experience. The most dramatic passages in "Chimes of Silence" describe his limited vision, which expresses to the reader how difficult and horrible of an experience it must have been. Soyinka's efforts to see any sign of life through peepholes in order to have some way of connecting with the outside world, shows just how lonely he really is. The poem opens with Soyinka struggling to see through a peephole in the door of his cell. His interest in the boring details outside of his cell shows just how lonely he is, and how much he longs to have any kind of contact with reality. "A little square hole cut in the door, enough for a goaler's fist to pass...enough for me to...steal a quick look at the rare flash of a hand, a face, a gesture...(140)." Soyinka is desperate to see anything that he can relate to human life. Anything that assures him that even though he has no contact with humans that life is still going on. Anything that reminds him th
Later in the essay Soyinka makes reference to the limited but present amount of sky that he is able to see in his cell; "...a sky the size of a napkin trapped by small spikes and broken bottles, but a sky (140)." Through his describing the sky Soyinka finds another way of connecting to the outside world. The sky that he looks upon is the same one that people look upon everyday, and to him it makes the correlation to the human life he longs to be living. Soyinka knows that when he was once living and surrounded by human contact that he was covered by the same sky that he sees in his cell. It serves as a reminder to him that although trapped he can still carry a piece of his old life within him. His memories of his old life can help make up for the emptiness inside of him in his time of being alone. Soyinka also describes the birds he can see from his cell, "Vultures perch on a roof just visible from another yard. And crows. Egrets overfly my crypt and bats swarm at sunset (140)." Through his description of the birds Soyinka once again describes something living in order to make up for the fact that he feels so alone, and in a sense dead. It seems that in Soyinka's description of the birds that he almost longs to be them, to be able to fly and be free. Soyinka envies the birds for they aren't trapped alone and they have access to the world unlike him. at there's the possibility that he could one day enter ba
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Approximate Word count = 961
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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