Background info :

- First published in the 1960s

- David Rubadiri is from the country of Malawi
- Was written around the time Malawi gained independence from British colonial rule
-

The poem is an allegory for colonialism and how it takes place in Africa.
The thunderstorm is colonialism

Themes :

Nature ( Man vs )
Colonialism / Colonisation
Insanity?
Places
Men and Women in Society
Loss

Devices :
Symbolism
Biblical allusion
Simile
Personification i think LOl
Diction
Alliteration
Repetition
Metaphor
Contrast

Use of Devices / Important Phrases :

“From the west,” - symbolism

Shows that the conflict / problem is coming from the west, which references the Western
World - U.S.A., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Europe - powerful countries

The Western World bringing conflict to Africa

“Like a plague of locusts, whirling” - biblical allusion / simile

Refers to the plagues of Egypt, one of which was the locusts that God sent which destroyed
the crops

Shows the storm came to bring suffering and death

“Like a madman chasing nothing,” - simile
Continues the description of abrupt and haphazard movement

“Pregnant clouds ride stately on its back” diction

The clouds that were once moving haphazardly and abruptly but now they’re moving stately
( dignified ). Shows the pompous pride of the colonisers who see themselves as above the
Africans. They roll in like royalty and take what they see.

“Stately” can also be a pun relating the clouds to a state or a country / reinforces the idea of
one country oppressing another / Several European countries oppressing several African
countries

The thunderstorm itself represents colonisation, the clouds represent the colonisers

‘Ride stately on its back” could represent the colonisers exploiting the Africans

“Gathering to perch on hills,” shows that the storm has found somewhere it wants to stay / a
people it wants to stay and colonise / destroy

Perch gives the image that the storm is also a bird

“Like sinister dark wings” - simile - gives a sense of evil, lurking, ready to attack

“The wind whistles by” - auditory imagery

The sound of the wind taking the storm to Africa

“And trees bend to let it pass” - personification

The trees bend to let the storm pass as they don’t want to get destroyed by the storm
themselves

“Screams of delighted children” - irony ( maybe dramatic but miss would prob say u cnt have
dramatic irony in a poem idk )
The children are delighted because they have never experienced anything like this before
and have a naive sense of excitement, blissfully unaware of what is to come.
Screams can provide an undertone of anxiety and suggest that the delight soon fades

“Screams of delighted children, toss and turn in the din of the whirling wind,” - personification
The sound of screaming gets mixed in with the whirling wind.The wind is very strong. People
are unable to hear the screams as the wind / storm drowns them out. Shows how easily
nature can take control of humans .
Din - a loud noise / commotion / chaos

“Toss and turn … whirling wind” - alliteration to show the storm’s power and noise
Change in form of stanzas - The third stanza is not as normal / organised as in the second
stanza, when the clouds were riding stately on the storm’s back. Some lines are long, some
are short. Similar to the first stanza, when the clouds and the storm were introduced. Shows
the irregularity.

“Women, babies clinging on their backs, dart about in and out madly”
The storm’s madness has passed on to the people, signalizimg that the colonizing is
affecting the people’s minds
Shows difference between the children’s reaction and the adults’
Babies may also feel the danger from their mothers, clinging
Clinging is diction because it shows that the babies know something is wrong

“Trees bend to let it pass,” repetition . Shows that the men don’t do anything to stop the
colonizing from happening.

“Clothes wave like tattered flags flying off” - simile. Reinforces the idea of colonization in the
poem. The people’s clothes have been tattered, just like their flags, because of colonization.
If the flags are flying off, it gives a sense of loss of national identity, and shows that they
have been / are being conquered.

“To expose dangling breasts” - gives a sense of sexual violence - colonizers often
disregarded the feelings / wellbeing of the people they were colonizing. This resulted in them
sexually violating and raping the women ( and prob men too ) often. This could be an
indication of that.

“Jagged blinding flashes” - visual imagery - lightning - people are blind ; theyre losing sight of
themselves because their country is being colonized.

Flashes - , pun? a reference to the women’s dangling breasts

“Rumble, tremble and crack”

“Fired smoke” can refer to the smoke after a fire has been put ut,

“And the pelting march of the storm” the march is like an army and the pelting refers to how
violent the storm is
The storm is personified