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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?
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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."
- Explain the significance of the title of this poem "Refugee Mother and Child" in connection with
the opening line. (4)
[Need help?]
During the civil war in Biafra, the population of that province was decimated and starved into submission.
This woman and her child are in a refugee camp. The woman holds her dying child. The two look like
a statue and remind the poet of the statue of the Madonna and Child which adorn so many Catholic
churches.
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- Comment on the rich imagery in these opening three lines. (4)
[Need help?]
The Catholic Church's teaching is that the love which existed between Mary and the baby Jesus was total.
The poet, however, draws attention to the love between the refugee mother and her child, the passion of
it. It reminds him of another statue, that of the Madonna holding her dead son after the crucifixion. There
is immense tenderness and passion in both scenes.
In one sense, however, the statue of the Madonna and Child is not as tender as this scene because here
the mother already knows that her child is on the point of death whereas the Madonna did not yet know
that her child would be crucified early in his life.
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"The air was heavy with odours
of diarrhoea of unwashed children."
- Why does the poet go into such detail with this description? (4)
[Need help?]
The poet wishes to bring home the enormity of the catastrophe. He does not want us to have just a vague
impression of the horror but rather know the full enormity of it. He therefore stresses the details of the
smells, the diarrhoea and the dirt. The air is "heavy" with it, oppressive with it.
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"Unwashed children
with washed-out ribs and dried-up
bottoms struggling in laboured
steps behind blown empty bellies."
- Explain the paradox of the "unwashed children" with the "washed-out ribs" and "dried-
up bottoms". (4)
[Need help?]
The poet is playing around with the word "washed", isn't he? The children are unwashed but their
ribs are "washed out". The flesh is all but gone, leaving just the skeletal frame of the children
covered by skin but with no flesh.
"Washed out" also means that the essence has vanished. When the colours have been washed
out of cloth, the essence of the cloth has gone. And so the essence of the children has faded, their very
lives are slowly ebbing away.
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"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."
- Why does the poet use "ghost" on two occasions 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.
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- Why is the mother's pride "in her eyes" and not on her lips or in her voice? (4)
[Need help?]
The woman has pride in her child but the pride can only be in her eyes. Pride on her lips would entail a
smile but, with death so close at hand, there is no smile. Likewise, there is no happiness in her voice as
she contemplates the certain death of her child.
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"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."
- Explain the significance of the poet's words "before his breakfast and
school". (4)
[Need help?]
The poet is looking to an earlier life before the war broke out, a life when food was in abundance, a life
when breakfast and school were an everyday event. Now there is no breakfast, no school, but only a
refugee camp and death.
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- Comment on the simile "now she did it like putting flowers on a tiny grave". (2)
[Need help?]
The woman is watching her child dying. Her little acts of love and kindness are therefore not unlike the
ritual of putting flowers on his grave.
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GENERAL QUESTIONS:
Chinua Achebe is a believer that all literature "should have a message, should have a purpose".
- In view of this, what message and purpose exists in "Refugee Mother and
Child"? (4)
[Need help?]
Achebe is pointing out to us the horrors of warfare and the accompanying hardships, the starvation and
the deaths. Achebe was an ambassador for Biafra and it was his duty to bring the struggles to the
attention of the international community. This poem has a similar purpose although wider in dimension
because he is able to talk about the eternal hardship of warfare.
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"Refugee Mother and Child" portrays people approaching death.
- Explain fully whether you think the poet has been successful in this. In your answer you may like to
include some of the following: the way in which the poet describes death, and how he presents his
feelings about death. Consider too the poet's use language throughout the poem. (10)
[Need help?]
Remember that most people would agree that the poet is indeed successful in his portrayal of approaching
death, so it would be unwise to go against this viewpoint unless you are very skilled at analysis.
In your analysis, you need to examine the poet's use of language in portraying death. Look at his intense
descriptions of death, his presentations of the smells, his description of the dying children who are like
skeletons coated with skin. Look at the manifestations of love, yet the inability to alter fate. Analyse such
words as "ghost" and "skull", etc.
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