POETIC DEVICES
THEME
1. Metaphor (line 1) landscape// furnace
of intense heat
2. Metaphor (line 5) shadow/ /pool
3. Hyperbole (line 6) purpled
4. Sibilance (line 7) s sound
5. Onomatopoeia (line 8) clicks
6. Metaphor (line 8) prowl – mother//
predator
7. Transferred epithet (line 9) nipple
8. Simile (line 12) milk of mother// river
9. Personification (line 12) river sighing
10. Onomatopoeia (line 12) sighing
11. Simile (line 17) mother’s body// hill
12. Simile (line 19) mother’s body// cloud
The poem now moves to its prophetic
climax and the Zulu Girl, as we have seen,
takes on the significance of a symbol. She
is no longer just a single, stray, exploited,
hardworking individual in some remote part
of the field: she represents to us the
potentiality of her race for suffering,
survival, and triumph.
19. Simile – the mother’s body is also
compared to the first cloud (first rains
of the spring season) that is threatening
/ violent (terrible) and still (link to the
word ‘rest’ (waiting silently to rise at
the appropriate time).
The line suggests an unpredictable
appearance.
Contrast the hot landscape in line 1
with the anticipation of the first rains of
spring.
17. Looms – rises above.
Simile – the mother’s body is
compared to a hill. Her body protects
her child like a hill protects people
living at its foot.
15. curbed – restrained / subdued
Ferocity – fierceness / violence
Note the threatening tone of this line.
The restrained warrior-like fierceness of
the Zulu tribes who allowed themselves
to be beaten.
13. Yet – indicates a change of
thought and of tone
Drowsy – resonates with sleepy (line
9)
Stream as opposed to a broad river
in line 12. It could imply that this
stream will become as expansive as
the mother’s influence of strength
one day.
Imbibes – absorbs or soaks up
BIOGRAPHY
Roy Campbell born in Durban in
1901 and died in 1957
TONE
The opening stanza adopts a sympathetic tone as
the poet exposes the harsh conditions where ‘the
sweating gang’ (line 2) labours. Likewise, the girl’s
child is ‘tormented’ (line 4) by flies. The second
stanza portrays the mother as loving and nurturing
as she ‘caresses’ (line 7) her child’s hair while she
tends to him. The tone of the third stanza is
tranquil and serene: The word ‘Yet” in the fourth
stanza is a shift in tone as the threatening ‘curbed
ferocity’ (line 15) of those ‘beaten tribes’ (line 15)
intrudes on the peaceful scene. The tone of
foreboding and danger finds expression in the
‘cloud so terrible and still’ (line 19) that warns of a
looming confrontation once the ferocity is
unleased.
20. Bears – carries forth
coming – the future
harvest – a gathering or yield in due season. Can
also mean a consequence of an effort or activity. This
must be understood in terms of time when the fruit of
waiting will ripen. In other words, when the time is
right.
The last line warns of a looming confrontation that will
restore the Zulu tribe’s warrior pride. In other words a
day of reckoning for the Zulu tribe is inevitable.
18. The mother provides shade to the child (refer to line
5) in the heat of the sun.
The village people at waiting in rest. This suggests that
they are ready to rise once again. It could mean that they
are resting (waiting) for the appropriate time.
16. Sullen – gloomy and threatening
Dignity – quality of being worthy of esteem or respect
Even though the Zulu tribe’s pride was defeated, they did
not lose their dignity.
14. Unquenched – unsatisfied, unfulfilled
Unsmotherable – that which cannot be suppressed or
held back
Heat – intense passion
This line refers to the underlying, unfulfilled and
unstoppable passion or energy. The dash at the end of
the line is used to indicate or explain what this
passion/ fire is in the next line (line 14).
12. Simile – the influence from the mother is compared to a broad river. Here the focus is on the underlying strength
from the mother that is broad (expansive). It contains more than just nutritional sustenance.
Sighing is onomatopoeia. This is an emotion of relief in this case. Relief that is explained in the next stanza. Also,
personification – the river sighs.
STRUCTURE
5 stanzas with four lines
Rhyming scheme is: a b a b
1. Hot red acres – the African landscape.
Metaphor – landscape is compared to a furnace
(hot, red and smoulder have connotations of
intense heat). Red is the colour of the freshly
ploughed earth.
Smoulder is to burn without flames or about to set
into flame. The sun is heating up the earth, the land.
1 When in the sun the hot red acres smoulder a
2 Down where the sweating gang its labour plies b
3 A girl flings down her hoe, and from her shoulder a
4 Unslings her child tormented by flies. b
5 She takes him to a ring of shadow pooled
6 By the thorn-tree: purpled with the blood of ticks,
7 While her sharp nails, in slow caresses ruled
8 Prowl through his hair with sharp electric clicks.
9 His sleepy mouth, plugged by the heavy nipple,
10 Tugs like a puppy, grunting as he feeds;
11 Through his frail nerves her own deep languor’s ripple
12 Like a broad river sighing through the reeds.
13 Yet in that drowsy stream his flesh imbibes
14 And old unquenched, unsmotherable heat –
15 The curbed ferocity of beaten tribes,
16 The sullen dignity of their defeat.
17 Her body looms above him like a hill
18 Within whose shade a village lies at rest,
19 Or the first cloud so terrible and still
20 That bears the coming harvest in its breast.
11. Frail – fragile, delicate
Languor – tenderness, lack of energy. Note the possessive case: languor’s ripple. This
suggests that the mother’s tenderness ripples (her tenderness is stirred up or moves into the
child. This could be a deep influence from the mother that the child is drinking in.
2. Gang – a collective known which means that the members have no individual identity or individuality. Here they
are labourers, farm workers who have no identity or possibly no dignity.
The poet describes the harsh conditions
under which people have to work. The Zulu
They are ‘sweating’ because of the heat of the sun and also because they are doing hard labour suggesting that
people are an oppressed nation, but they
they are forced to work on the fields.
are gathering strength to rebel.
Plies – to work steadily
3. The focus moves from the collective to the individual – a girl.
The word ‘girl’ also suggests that the woman is nameless, without
identity.
hoe
‘Flings’ suggests an attitude of defiance. Here in protest to the
unfavourable conditions that she is forced to work in and also to
the authority of the landowner she is forced to work for.
‘Hoe’ is a gardening/farming tool used to plough. It involves
strenuous labour to plough the hard earth which has been baked
by the sun (line 1).
Stanza 2 illustrates the care that the mother shows to her child.
4. The girl is carrying her baby on her back while working. She
unties the knot of the cloth that holds her child to her back. The
child is troubled by the flies. The image here suggests the 5. Ring of shadow is the shade that comes from the thorn tree.
poverty and degrading conditions under which she must nurture Pooled suggests that more than one tree creates the shade but
her child. This image is directly opposed to the nursery and the metaphor also suggests the refreshing that one gets from a
sterile conditions under which a mother would nurture her child.
pool of water on a hot day. The idea is that she finds this shady
spot the ideal place (given the context) to feed her child.
6. The hyperbole suggests that the area is infested with ticks (tick-
5
ridden) because the tree is coloured by the blood of ticks. Again the
imagery of a place that is not suitable for a baby.
Ticks - parasitic insects causing a bacterial fever transmitted by its
bite
8. Prowl – to move about secretly or cautiously looking for
prey. This metaphor is extended by the mother’s sharp nails.
10 The image here portrays the mother as a predator in order to
protect her child against the ticks (poverty /unhygienic
conditions).
Sharp electric clicks – onomatopoeia on the word clicks
and it imitates the sound of electric shocks as the mother
7. Sharp nails – what does this image tell us about the mother? strokes through the child’s hair. Electric refers to the static
electricity caused by the friction between her nails and the
child’s hair.
Note the sibilance in the line suggests a soothing ‘s’ sound that
soothes her child.
‘Slow caresses’ suggests the motherly affection that she gives her
child. Caress means slow loving strokes.
15
Ruled suggests that she meticulously divides the child’s hair into
straight lines to look (prowl) for lice or ticks.
purpled with the blood of ticks
10. Tugs – abrupt pull implying that the child feeds hungrily
20 9. Sleepy relates to the effect of the sibilance in line 7.
Simile – the child is compared to a puppy that is feeding. Both a
Plugged – latched. It also suggests connected / related (the bond child and a puppy are vulnerable, innocent and harmless. There
between mother and child). The word also suggests the immense is possibly an extension of the image here that if the child is
hunger of the child as if the breast milk is his only nourishment. viewed as a puppy, then the mother is viewed as a dog. What
(poverty) do you think? However, the mother does not view her child this
way.
Heavy nipple is transferred epithet in that it makes better sense to
state ‘heavy breast’ but the poet transfers the description to the nipple Grunting – an animal-like noise. This suggests that the child is
to heighten the breastfeeding effect of the suckling child. drinking the milk voraciously almost gluttonously. (Again
extending the idea of poverty, starvation for the child).
The Zulu Girl