Waiting poem
I believe that Arthur Nortje's poem, "Waiting", is about the speaker's struggle to find meaning and purpose in his life when confronted by "a hole in the mind's foundation"- the possible decimation of all that he believed to be true about the anti apartheid struggle on which he has based his life. The actions he has felt compelled to undertake in order to realize his hopes for his country have come at great cost to himself, resulting in exile from the "roots" that nourish him. The idea that that these actions may have been based on nothing but flimsy sentiment and have ultimately achieved nothing, as purposeless as an empty warehouse, is the source of the speaker's present attitude towards his exile. It is this attitude of bitter disillusionment that I wish to explore in this essay and I would also like to focus on his use of imagery, particularly the interplay between imagery of darkness and light, and what I believe these images represent.In line four, the speaker refers to night as being the "beautifier." It transforms the wharf, which in daylight is usually fairly unattractive, into a place of dancing lights. The implication is that darkness hides the ugly reality, and thus provides escape into illusion. I believe that t
The speaker's ambivalent attitude to light is also evident in his constant reference to fire in the poem, which I believe to be a symbol for the passionate struggle to free South Africa from the grip of apartheid. Thus, this "fire" has offered hope to millions by lighting the path to freedom, yet, the searing fierce passion he had for this cause has consumed and destroyed him, much like a raging fire would destroy the structure that housed it. His use of the word "gutted' in the first line could mean gutted by fire, indicating that a charred empty shell is all that remains of the man he once was. Continuing with this idea, in the last line of the poem, the speaker tells of the "ash on my sleeve". If the idiom is to be believed, when ones emotions are exposed it is referred to as 'wearing your heart on your sleeve.' Thus, the speaker may be saying that the struggle has elicited such strong emotions and caused him such pain that his heart has been cremated, rendering him incapable of emotion. This truth is revealed once the darkness of illusion has been dispelled by the "night bulb". "Fire" is again referred to in line twenty in the context of the struggle within South Africa. Referring to the fire as "withering" implies that it is dissipating, by which the speaker may be alluding to the dissipation of the anti-apartheid movement that occurred as a result of the state crackdown on dissident activities at that time. He could thus be expressing his disillusionment with the movements' weak and ineffectual nature. In conclusion, Nortje's use of vivid metaphor and evocative
Some common words found in the essay are:
Africa Referring, Arthur Nortje's, South Africa, Reading Advanced, Company Montgomery, Abrams MH, Nortje Arthur, AndersonKossick Pereira, , speaker's attitude, University Press, montgomery et al, montgomery et, attitude towards, apartheid struggle, ambivalent attitude, believe images, al 1992, south africa, anti apartheid, et al, et al 1992,
Approximate Word count = 1065
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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