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At a funeral Summary and Analysis

Dennis Vincent Brutus was born in Harare, Zimbabwe. He was a fearless campaigner of justice, a
great humanist, a prolific writer, a teacher, a socialist and a political activist. He was imprisoned for
his actions in the struggle against oppression and racism. During his imprisonment, his first volume of
poetry, ‘Sirens Knuckles, Book (1963)’ was published. Brutus wrote about his prison experiences and
the inhumanity of apartheid. During his lifetime, Brutus experienced inhumanity and many other
harsh realities of ‘apartheid’ which existed in Africa during the colonial period. He stood firm against
these injustices and reciprocated through his poetry. Deprivations and destitutions in socio-economic-
political aspects were part and parcel of the lives of black people in those days. The pathetic state of
these black people was worsened when people began losing hope for themselves due to inferiority
complexes.
In 1965, he was released and allowed to leave South Africa on the conditions that he would never
return. He emigrated to England in 1966 and then to the United States in 1970. He is regards as one of
the most distinguished contemporary South African poets.
The poet, through this poem called for a never-dying spirit and contemplated to reach out to his
people with a strong message that endurance and self-confidence will permanently relieve them from
any form of tyrannical bondage.

At A Funeral
By Dennis Brutus
Black, green and gold at sunset: pageantry 1
And stubbled graves: expectant, of eternity,
In bride's-white, nun's-white veils the nurses gush their bounty
Of red-wine cloaks, frothing the bugled dirging slopes
Salute! Then ponder all this hollow panoply 5
For one whose gifts the mud devours, with our hopes.

Oh all you frustrate ones, powers tombed in dirt,

Aborted, not by Death but carrion books of birth
Arise! The brassy shout of Freedom stirs our earth;
Not Death but death’s-head tyranny scythes our ground 10
And plots our narrow cells of pain defeat and dearth:
Better that we should die, than that we should lie down.

Summary
‘At a funeral’ is a poem of two stanzas consisting of twelve loosely rhymed lines. The poem is about a
woman called Valencia Majombozi, an African woman who managed to qualify as a doctor after
enormous hardship and sacrifice by her parent. She was raised by her mother who took in washing
and ironing, did the cleaning of apartment buildings and put her through university. She obtained her
medical degree and then, by an unpredictable irony, just after Valencia had completed her internship,
she died.
The poem is about the years of sacrifice that end in nothing. The poem is an expression of frustrated
and aborted hopes, and the ‘voice of the voiceless’. Valencia Majombozi has become a symbol of the
predicament of Black people as a whole in South Africa. Many of them were voiceless, voteless,
generally deprived of education. Their lives were controlled not so much by the police and army,
though those are there all the time, but the lives of Black people in South Africa were controlled more
by a ‘convention’ – something which people agree on. This was a curious thing called a “Pass Book”,
which every Black person had to carry from the age of 16. This “Pass Book”, controlled their
movement and even determined where they would be buried when they died.

AT A FUNERAL BY DENNIS BRUTUS MRS FM RICHARDS

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Stanza 1
Line 1-2:
‘Black, green and gold at sunset: pageantry
And stubbled graves: expectant, of eternity,’
The poem is also operating on a political level. These are the colours of the ANC and this suggests to
the reader that the poem should be read from a political perspective. The poem can thus be read on
two levels: the personal and the political.
The resistance movement in South Africa has its own flag, as opposed to the State flag; the resistance
movement's flag is black, green and gold. The choice of those colours at the beginning of the poem is
not an accident.
Many of the colleagues of this doctor attended her funeral wearing their university robes; these were
black caps and gowns, but often with a gold hood indicating an arts degree, green indicating a science
degree; so again you have a combination of black, green and gold. This academic level of symbolism
is literally there.
‘Pageantry’ describes a splendid spectacle, full of colourful costumes, movement and sound. The
‘stubbled graves’ are the complete antithesis. There is no pomp and splendour here. Moreover, this is
not a neat and tidy cemetery. The grass around the grave is roughly cut (‘stubbled”), and is, perhaps,
in the veld. There is no glory, just the thought of death.

Line 3-4:
In bride's-white, nun's-white veils the nurses gush their bounty
Of red-wine cloaks, frothing the bugled dirging slopes
There were nurses there from the hospital. In South Africa the nurses wear cloaks which are lined
with bright red--the "red-wine." Other nurses at the funeral wore white, which echo the nuns in their
habits "In bride'-white, nun's-white veils."
The nurses provide the colour. They are wearing their uniforms. Their starched veils are white and
their cloaks the colour of red wine. They also provide the movement: ‘they gush their bounty’; they
are emotional and showing their grief at the graveside. Someone is providing sound on the ‘bugled
dirging slopes’ where the emotion from the nurses is ‘frothing’ – spreading out to provide more
pagentry.
The bugle/trumpet is playing a mournful melody (‘dirging’) which creates a sad but also glorious
atmosphere. It could even be the Last Post, which is played to honour the dead. The salute suggests an
important ceremonial event, with soldiers and guns.

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White is the colour of purity and is linked by hyphens to brides and nuns. Brides and nuns dedicate
their lives to a new life. This link shows that the nurses are alive and have a future while Valencia’s
life, sadly is over. The red is linked with wine, which is also a symbol of life.
Lines 5-6
Salute! Then ponder all this hollow panoply
For one whose gifts the mud devours, with our hopes.

The capital letter and exclamation mark, ‘Salute!’, as well as the fact that it is a verb on its own, make
it a command. This command could be addressed to everyone at the funeral but also to all readers of
the poem.
In these lines, the poet directly addresses a wider audience, asking them to think deeply about
(‘ponder’) the bigger concerns which this occasion suggests to him. Like an orator he deliberately
identifies himself with this audience by using the pronoun ‘our’.
The word ‘pageantry’ has implications of a glamorous show which is not deeply meaningful. It links
with ‘panoply’ which means an impressive display (superficial) which the poet describes as ‘hollow’
– empty of any real meaning. The word ‘gush’ means to be effusive or highly sentimental: the nurses
give way to uncontrolled emotion which is ‘frothing’, again superficial (froth is insubstantial surface
bubbles). All these suggest a lack of sincerity. As far as the poet is concerned, there are deeper
concerns to get worked up about, like the fight for freedom for all the people of South Africa.
In line 6, Valenica is obliquely referred to in an impersonal way as ‘one’ whose talents have been
devoured by the muddy grave and with it the hopes of all who envisaged a great future for her.

Stanza 2
Lines 7-8:
Oh all you frustrate ones, powers tombed in dirt,
Aborted, not by Death but carrion books of birth
The phrase ‘you frustrate ones’ echoes the hopelessness of the mourners. These people , unnamed, are
not dead literally but are buried in the ‘carrion books of birth’ – the pass books. The pass books
controlled the lives of Black people from birth to death. Even the places of burial are marked out for
them. Just like Valenica, their lives have been ‘aborted’ – cut short.
In the later segments the poet speaks of "carrion books of birth," saying that the life of the Black
begins as a kind of death.
From the moment of birth you are given this Pass Book, so that you cease to be a human being from
the point of birth. You are devoured. You become carrion. dead flesh. The poet further says that it is

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not the physical event of ‘Death’ which destroys the Black people, their destruction comes from a
tyranny which is associated with the ‘death’s head’. The poet says that is the Nazi system in South
Africa which destroys people; they are destroy even before they are born and this of course ties in
with the notion of abortion.
Lines 9-10
Arise! The brassy shout of Freedom stirs our earth;
Not Death but death’s-head tyranny scythes our ground
The word ‘Arise’, like ‘Salute’ in the first stanza, stands at the beginning of the line followed by an
exclamation mark. It is an order, a call to action, a loud, hard sound, calling like a trumpet.
‘Death’ with a capital letter is a personification, which names the mortal ending of life. Death is often
pictured as a cloaked skeleton carrying a scythe, a curved metal tool which is used to cut long grass.
In Death’s hands it signifies the cutting off of a life. A ‘death’s head’ is a skull, displayed on the desk
of its owner as a reminder of death. Here, it refers to the ‘tyranny’ of a system that cut down the lives
of Black people.
It's helpful to know the symbol of "death's-head tyranny."
This is a reference to a film in South Africa called "Judgement at Nuremburg." It begins with the
tanks rolling through the streets of Berlin with the Panzer Divisions, whose insignia was a skull and
crossbones --the death's-head being wildly cheered by the audience. The Nazis were regarded as great
heroes by the apartheid South African regime. and people imitated them; the Nazis were the model for
how one should behave if you were a white South African.

Line 11-12:
And plots our narrow cells of pain defeat and dearth:
Better that we should die, than that we should lie down.
The word ‘plots’ can be a verb, meaning to make secret plans to destroy someone or something. In
this context the political system makes plans (by law) to contain the Black people in ‘narrow cells’.
These could be prison cells or graves. The word can also be read as noun which would describe
graves, both literal and figurative.
In the concluding lines of the poem, the poet is anticipating prison, he anticipates the “narrow cells”,
and assumes that in resisting the system it is necessary to expect to be imprisoned. The tone is one of
defiance. Death is preferable to submission, ‘lie down’. So ‘we’ must do something to change the
situation. This is a positive, forceful, honest conclusion, taking a strong stance in response to the
funeral of Valenica.

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The poem also highlights that the apartheid system in South Africa taught the Black child three
things:

 That God made them black;

 Their blackness and consequent inferiority must be accepted as God’s will;
 They must be happy in their acceptance of their natural inferiority.
The last lesson is perhaps the most dangerous; that should know that they are black and inferior and
that God made them that way and they should like it. This was the fate of the people living in the time
of apartheid.
‘A Simple Lust’ sums up what poem is about. Brutus used to be baffled in South Africa when he saw
people in the resistance movement who endured much more than he did. This made his realise that it
must be a simple basic need for a human being to be free. It is part of our psyche, our nature. It is as
necessary as our need to breathe and eat. Freedom is an appetite, a lust which we have.
Questions

AT A FUNERAL BY DENNIS BRUTUS MRS FM RICHARDS