AFRICAN POETRY
How does Rubadiri use language to portray the effects of the storm in “An African Thunderstorm”?
Explanation
The poem presents a picture of chaos and, destruction brought about by an African thunderstorm. Images abound - the poem to present an atmosphere of confusion at the approach of the storm.
In stanza one, the clouds are said to be "hurrying with the wind". This metaphor emphasizes the speed of the storm a-id the imminent destruction. The wind seems to be impatient in its mission. The destructive nature of the thunderstorm compared, in a powerful simile, to that of locusts.
Another simile compares the wind's indiscriminate movement in its path to that of a mad man. The metaphor "pregnant clouds" suggests the inevitability of a heavy downpour and the threat which it carries. The clouds are "like dark sinister wings" suggesting the evil which they portend. Trees bend in obeisance to the "whistling The final stanza of the poem expresses the reactions of those who find themselves in the path of the storm. While the children are excited, the women "dart about" taking things out of the harm's way.
The effect of the storm on the women is graphically expressed. They are stripped almost naked by the force of the wind. The last four lines which climax the poem vividly present the atmosphere of fear which culminates in the arrival of the storm. The language used in the poem encapsulates the feeling of fear, chaos and uneasiness that the African thunderstorm
Other examples of language use include alliteration and onomatopoeia, as in "whistling wind", "rumble, tremble and :rack" of the thunderstorm and the "pelting march of the storm." Personification is used to describe the cloud as pregnant" and the wind whistling as trees bend to let it pass. The entire poem is full of images of movement, hearing and sight.