Wendel Gabrielle L.

Navarro
BSED3 English
Survey of Afro-Asian Literature

AFRICA written by David Diop

Poem Analysis

I. Figures of speech/Rhetorical Devices

Personification plays a major role to address Africa. It’s a figure of speech that
attributes to human characteristics to something not human. In this case, Africa
has been personified in lines of the poem like “The back of your sweat, the sweat
of your work, the work of your slavery” which gives Africa a character that shares
with its native slaves. Apostrophe is also a figure of speech found in this poem. It
refers to something absent or dead as if it were present. The line of “I have never
known you” speaks to Africa like it was presently there as a being.

Anaphora can be found at the first few lines of the poem. “Africa my Africa,
Africa of proud warriors in ancestral savannahs, Africa of whom my grandmother
sings.”

II. Tone of the Poetry

The tome of Africa elicits a beautiful but haunting essence to it. Some verses
portrayed it as a delightful fertile land of warriors and hardworking people of
color. It soon turned into a haunting tone once slavery was depicted, at the
suffering of Africa through its people by being slaves.

III. Imagery The strongest imagery depicted in Africa is in the line “This back that
never breaks under the weight of humiliation This back trembling with red scars
And saying no to the whip under the midday sun”. You can feel the heat and pain
through and through.

IV. Message of the Poem

It addresses the appreciation of liberty. Liberty is not one to be devalued and

unappreciated, because it’s the reason we are not forced to do what we don’t want
and sold of like some cattle without our free will and freedom.