READ THIS
The poem looks at the bitter hardship in Biafra during its civil war with Nigeria. Starvation and disease
were
rife, and children died with unconcerned regularity. The poet examines one case where a mother did care
and continued to treat her child as if he would live.
ABOUT THE POET
Chinua Achebe was born in Ogidi (Nigeria) in November 1930. He was the son of a teacher at a mission
school.
He was schooled at the Government College in Umuahia and then at the University College in Ibadan
where
he received a Bachelors degree in 1953, having specialised in English, History and Theology.
He thereupon studied broadcasting with the BBC, after which he worked for the Voice of Nigeria. Later
he
was appointed research fellow at the University of Nigeria, where he eventually became a professor of
English.
In 1961 Achebe married Christie Chinwe Okoli with whom he had four children.
In 1967 civil war broke out in Nigeria when the Catholic dominated province of Biafra attempted
independence from the Moslem dominated central state. During those fateful years, Achebe worked as
an ambassador for the Biafran government.
The war went badly for the Biafrans who suffered immensely, and starvation was rife. The poet's firsthand
experience of the hardship and struggle inspired him to write "Refugee Mother and Child".
Achebe has written several novels and many poems. Indeed, he is considered to be one of the finest
literary artists to have come out of Africa. He is a believer that all literature "should have a message,
should have a purpose".
He retired in 1981 but in 1990 was paralysed from the waist down in a car accident.
Have you looked at the questions in the right column?
|
TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer the following questions:
"No Madonna and Child could touch
that picture of a mother's tenderness
for a son she soon will have to forget."
- What is meant by "Madonna and Child"? (2)
[Need help?]
The "Madonna" is Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ. The "Child" is therefore her son, Jesus.
A statue of the Madonna holding the Infant Jesus is common in the Catholic Church. Remember that
Achebe wrote this poem in the Catholic province of Biafra, where statues of the Madonna and Child would
have been common.
|
- Why will the mother soon have to forget her child? (4)
[Need help?]
Starvation was rife in the refugee camp where the mother and her child lived. Children in the camp were
dying with regularity, and the mother knows that her own son would probably also soon be dead.
|
"The air was heavy with odours
of diarrhoea of unwashed children."
- Explain how the meaning of these two lines would alter if one placed a comma after the word
"diarrhoea". (2)
[Need help?]
Without the comma, the meaning would be that the odours were of diarrhoea from the unwashed children.
The comma, however, would alter the meaning to one in which the odours were arising from diarrhoea
AND
from the unwashed children.
|
- Why does the author not then use commas in these lines? (2)
[Need help?]
By omitting the commas, the poet forces the reader to think out the meaning of his lines. He is also able
to hide two or even three different meanings in each context.
|
"Unwashed children
with washed-out ribs and dried-up
bottoms struggling in laboured
steps behind blown empty bellies."
- Why would the children's ribs be "washed-out"? (4)
[Need help?]
"Washed-out" could mean tired or exhausted, or it could mean that the essence of life has faded
away as when the colours in cloth have been washed out. The children's ribs are "washed-out"
because the children are so starved that there is scarcely any flesh left on them. Their lives are fading
away, their essence is vanishing as they slowly die.
|
- If the children's bellies are empty, why would they be "blown"? (4)
[Need help?]
The children are suffering from kwashiorkor, which the Oxford Dictionary describes as "a form of
malnutrition caused by a protein deficiency of diet, especially in young children in the tropics". It leads
the children's bellies to blow up. So these children are starving -- they therefore have empty stomachs
-- but their bellies are blown up from kwashiorkor.
|
"Most mothers there had long ceased
to care but not this one."
- Explain the implication of the words, "Most mothers there had long ceased to
care". (4)
[Need help?]
The mothers all know that their children are dying. It is what is known as a "defence mechanism"
that the mothers use to protect themselves. There is nothing they can do to prevent their children from
dying, and so they protect themselves from psychological destruction by giving the appearance that they
no longer care.
|
"She held
a ghost smile between her teeth
and in her eyes the ghost of a mother's
pride as she combed the rust-coloured
hair left on his skull."
- Comment on the poet's use of the words "ghost" and "skull" in these
lines. (4)
[Need help?]
The entire poem centres on death. The words "skull" and "ghost" reinforce this theme.
"Ghost" is used twice: "a ghost smile" and "the ghost of a mother's pride".
A ghost is but a dim shadow of life. The children are dim shadows of their previous lives, shadows that
are
dying. But the woman's smile is also a ghost of a smile, and her pride is but a ghost of her former pride.
At the same time, the child has been starved for so long that there is no more flesh on his head. The skull
is hidden with a mere veil of skin. Death is but a short way off.
|
"In another life
this would have been a little daily
act of no consequence before his
breakfast and school; now she
did it like putting flowers
on a tiny grave."
- What does the poet mean by "in another life"? (4)
[Need help?]
The "other life" is the life before the war, life before the starvation, life when everything was normal
and food was in abundance.
|
- Why would this act normally be "of no consequence"? (4)
[Need help?]
In a normal life before the war, the child would come down for breakfast and his mother would comb his
hair.
It would be a meaningless gesture, an everyday thing. But here in the refugee camp, and with the child
dying, the woman's act of playing with the child's hair has the intensity of a final act of love, the intensity
of putting flowers on his grave.
|
|