Literature Assignment Poems

ASSIGNMENT ONE:

How does the theme of death relate to the poem: “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Land” by Dylan Thomas

ASSIGNMENT TWO:

In Oumar Farouk’s poem “The Song of the Women of My Land”, Time is presented in the poem as quite powerful. Do you agree? Discuss.

This were the two assignment questions given to me by my teacher in Nigeria. I attacked these questions with my might and I came out successful with a distinction.

Here is the answer to Assignment One

1. The Theme of Death 

   Death is the central theme of “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” Throughout the poem, the speaker likens death to darkness and nighttime—the “good night” of the poem’s title—while comparing life to light. The poem is showing us (the readers) a complex attitude towards death. The speaker knows that death is impossible to evade, but urges his father to fight it for as long as he can. Yet the poem suggests that despite death’s inevitability, one can overcome it in some sense by leaving behind great words and actions, which requires resisting the temptation to yield to death. For example, in the second stanza, the “wise men” mourn the fact that their words haven’t had enough influence, and in the third, “good men” lament how much their deed would have stood out had they been stronger. These groups of men decide not to go gentle into that good night because they have not achieved much. All these men were presented to his dying father so that he would not give in to death.

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Here is the answer to Assignment Two

1. Time

   Yes, I agree that time was presented in the poem. In the poem, the poet says that the women in his time used to sing songs whose lyrics represented the hard work that they suffered during ploughing of land, the pain they suffered when they were treated as servants, handcuffed and ill-treated. Oumar is telling us(the readers) those times when they were treated badly and molested. From these lines of the poem we will know that time was referenced here.

   they sang in the forlorn fields

   about their lives, songs

   of how they ploughed the terrain of their landscape

   for memories of lyrics lost in the vast void of time,

   in those days when a song beheld their lives;

   when servitude cuffed the ankles of their soul,

   and dereliction decapitated the epic of their lives.

   Three lines to the end of the poem he said

   Yet time strips the lyrics and scars the tune,

   leaving a dying song.

   Dead!

   This tells us that time is dominant in this poem. But now the women who were singing were dead and the song and lyrics were gone. The lyrics were now used by local poets and singers. The voice of the song was dead now. The song was no longer comforting.

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After writing all these long piece of work in my assignment book I came out with a distinction. The end score was 10 and I got 9.5/10.

I was a good student but what of you put it down in comments..

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