This blog is in response to a task assigned by Yesha ma’am based on Chinua Achebe’s African poem ‘Vultures’.
About author :
Writer Chinua Achebe was born in the village of Ogidi in eastern Nigeria. His father worked for the Church Missionary Society, and his early education was through the society’s school. At the age of eight, Achebe began to learn English. When he was 14, he was one of a few boys selected to attend the government college at Umuahia, which was one of the best schools in west Africa. In 1948, Achebe enrolled at University College, Ibadan, which was a new school. He intended to study medicine, but he soon switched to English literary studies. The college at Ibadan was affiliated with the University of London, and Achebe’s course of study was very similar to that required by the University of London’s honors degree program. While at school, he contributed stories, essays, and sketches to the University Herald; these pieces were collected in Girls at War and Other Stories.
About poem:
Vultures’ is one of the famous poems of the Nigerian poet Chinua Achebe. It is a dark and somber piece that focuses on the Belsen concentration camp and a commandant who works there. Chinua Achebe’s ‘Vultures’ is a gritty poem that is hard to read due to the harrowing subject matter. By using several visual and olfactory imagery, Achebe creates a dark and filthy environment in the poem. It depicts a truthful picture of the Belsen concentration camp. The commandant, in the poem, is none other than a representative of a class, who selflessly thinks of his own family even if thousands of families are rotting just around him. The fetid smell of rotting humanity inside him gets featured through the imagery of the vultures.
Tone of the poem :
In much of the poem the speaker’s tone is quite detached, as if he is narrating what he observes and whatever thoughts occur to him. The description of the vultures is quite clinical in the way it recounts in great detail what they ate and did. In the second section, in which the speaker personifies love in the charnel-house, there is an element almost of tender amusement as he describes how she tidies her corner and curls up to sleep with her face to the wall. The description of the Belsen Commandant shows a note of disgust as the speaker mentions ‘fumes of human roast’ and ‘hairy nostrils’. He shows a touchof contemptuous outrage as he mentions the ‘tender offspring’ waiting for ‘Daddy’s return’. In the final section of the poem, the speaker’s tone becomes rather hopeless and pessimistic. He allows the reader to choose thankfulness, ‘if you will’ – the phrase emphasizing his own lack of faith in this option. Clearly his own view is that thepotential for love is the flip-side of the potential for evil.
Structure of the poem ‘vultures’ :
The poem is in free verse, with no rhyme scheme and no formal stanzas. The lines are very short and enjambment is used throughout – commas and full stops are found in the middle of the line rather than the end, and there seems to be no logic to where the lines end. The poem is divided into four ‘sections’ indicated by the use of indented lines and ellipses.
Themes:
Scavenger
In this poem, is that there are two vultures. When we think of vultures, we think of Scavengers, big dark bird that search for rotten/dying food. However, in this poem is portraying vultures as love 'birds' and how there can be love during a war and that whenever there is darkness there is always light somewhere .
Nazism:
Bergen Belson was one of the many notorious Nazi concentration camps. Unlike the death camps such as Auschwitz it did not have gas chambers. Instead prisoners were worked to death on a starvation diet. Conditions were appealing and the cruelty was unspeakable. By the time the camp was liberated by Allied troops 50,000 European citizens had been killed within its fences many of the dead were put into mass graves; others were incinerated in giant crematoria. One its most famous victims was the diarist Anne Frank.
Vulture as metaphor:
Vultures symbolize death and decomposition. The poet tells us that these symbols of death and evil, who eat the decaying corpses, can have a loving side. This image of love contrasts with their evil nature. Bashed-in head- another image of violence that creates a terrifying picture of them. The poem is an extended metaphor on the nature of evil. It portrays a picture of a concentration camp commander, but begins with an analogy; a description of a pair of vultures who nuzzle 'affectionately' together after gorging on a corpse.
Humanism:
Vulture is sitting in the ‘broken bone of a dead tree’. It shows that they fed on dead humans. It represents the violence or evil nature of vultures. They are harmful for nature. But we see at the centre of the concentration camp how the commandant survives on dead bodies. It is very ridiculous.
Ecology:
Poem begin with a gloomy atmosphere of the words 'grayness' . It shows that a very dull and lifeless atmosphere is created. First focus of nature is that it's very gloomy. It's presented as something bad. The next word in the poem is harbinger. Vultures are associated with evil. This creates a sinner atmosphere. Achebe identifies the charnel house as the belsen concentration camp where Jews and other prisoners were killed and their bodies were often burned. 'Human roast' refers to the victims in the concentration camp as if they were being cooked.
Setting and Context:
Two vultures roosting by a roadside prompt thoughts on the nature of evil. The poem is set principally in the Biafran war, although this is not mentioned explicitly. The second part of the poem refers explicitly to the Second World War. By implication/suggestion the poem is relevant to all human conflict.The poem begins with a graphic and unpleasant description of a pair of vultures who nestle lovingly together after feasting on a corpse. The poet comments on the strangeness of love existing in places where one would not
expect. He then goes on to consider the love a concentration camp commandant shows to his family, having spent the day burning human corpses, he buys his child sweets on theway home. The ending of the poem is ambiguous/two sided. On one hand, Achebe praises God and providence that even the most cruel of creatures can show love. On the other hand, these creatures show love for their families only and so allow themselves to commit cruel acts towards others.
Conclusion :
The vultures, described in such a disparaging; grim fashion could beconstrued as a metaphor for the people responsible for the atrocities in Belsen and in particular the Commandant. It is the longest part of the poem and this is not a coincidence. The first stanza is a metaphor for the Commandant’s predominant personality traits and this is
why it dominates so much of the poem’s content. The third stanza, the scene with his child, represents a far smaller portion of the poem and this is a metaphor for his spark of humanity. The form of this poem is very clever as it creates a grim and deathly image, it creates a glimmer of hope in the second and third stanzas and then ends on a hopeless and fatalistic note emphasising the futility of the situation. Difference between the vultures and the commandant: Vultures feed on corpses. That is their instinct. It is not something that they choose to do. The Commandant is not acting on instinct. He has the ability to choose. He chooses to be evil.
Thank you !
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