'How does Grace Nichols convey the life of the slave women in her poetry? Essay\r'

' unmatchable authority gentleness Nichols furnishs us how the buckle down women had to drop dead is by saying what they had to do for their captors. In her poesy ‘We the women’ t devastationerness says ‘we the women who cutclearfetchdigsing’. The idea of non putting spaces amid each work shows how punishing they had to work without a break. pardon to a fault says ‘we the women who toil’ which in worry manner shows how hard they had to work. The parable ‘whose deaths they sweep aside as at large(p) as dead leaves’ shows how frequently they were hated and seen as pieces of rubbish. The lend oneself of the word ‘we’ in the verse shows reasonable how many women had been captured and a ordinates a sense of empathy with the buckle down women. The sun in this poetry is shown as a ruffianly figure even though it gives invigoration. To the break ones backs it is bad because it makes the labour they pi ss to do even harder than it should be.\r\nThe slaves move to cheer themselves up by singing. The verb ‘sing’ in the poem has a religious con nonation which shows their precept in God. However, this belief is doubted by the suffering they guard to endure day after day and also because their prayers go unsung, as G washing says. We see with the utilize adjective ‘unadorned’ that the slaves were treated severely, mis utilize and sternly dressed because appearance did not matter to the captors merely work.\r\nGrace Nichols uses repetition to convey the harshness of their lives as well. The course ‘old dry- masterminded women leaning on her till’ argon repeated in the poem ‘Up my spine’ to show how bad their condition was and how ill-use they were. It also shows the amount of heat exhaustion they cast and the lack of rest they have. Their heads ar burnt by the sun and the skin is dry. Grace also says in that poem that the y have to work even if they are injured and hurt. This shows how much they dis the liked slaves save had to use them for work to make money. The phrase ‘Way put up time when she had a f each(prenominal)’ is used to show that at that rear is no medical help for the workers so they work till they die.\r\nGrace uses the senses to convey how amazing the slaves’ lives were in this poem as well. Two causas of this are ‘I see the pit of her eye’ and ‘I hear her rattle bone laugh’. This also conveys the physical state that the slaves were in and how they looked. However their captors did vigour to help as it did not matter to them what they were like as long as they worked. The second sheath gives a feeling of abomination to the poem as she thinks that the slaves would want revenge on the overseers for what they did to them. After all no-one would want to work all day for nothing. The simile ‘twist up and shaky like a crippled ins ect’ which also conveys their lives.\r\nIn the poem ‘Water pot’ the workers are slaving away in a plantation centre. Grace says in it, ‘t present’s a water pot increment from her head’. This is because the slave woman is carrying it on her head whenever they needed water which, in the heat, is often. It also shows how much work they had to do and for how long every day. Grace says in this poem as well that they are like cattle ‘ evermore hurried’.\r\nThis conveys how badly they were treated and actually what the captors saw them as. The words ‘ attempt to walk like a woman’ is used to show how injured they were because of work and the position they could not walk properly. Grace implies that the slaves had to pull themselves erect to cumber whatever self-esteem, to keep going and not give up, and to show the overseers they will survive whatever they cast out at them. However a vast enactment of slaves died duri ng the 18th century alone.\r\n‘Ala’ is a poem round a woman killing her own tike and then world punished for it. In the poem, the slave has given birth to a child which she does not wish to keep because of who the father is. In this authority the father is one of the overseers/captors who raped her. This poem also symbolizes the horror the slave women had to go by dint of and the fact that the title is a religious word meat ‘god’ their cry for help to their God.\r\nThe woman who is being tortured is lying on a get along with with her arms and legs spread-eagled and staked to the primer. This is an implication of Jesus as he was crucified on a cross. The overseers see this woman as a ‘rebel’ and are making an example to the former(a)s by killing her publicly. She is the scapegoat. Grace uses repetition here to show to us what was in transmission line for the other women if they did the same. She also says the slave has sent the new-born soul winging its way back to Africa. This implies that the baby is an angel as it has not been forced to work or put through any physical labour. Grace says the soul has departed to Africa because it is where most of the slaves originated from and it is then free.\r\nThis woman is being eaten existent by red ants as a lay down of capital punishment for her actions. The personification in the line ‘and the sun blind her with his fury’ adds to the cruelty. The sun is a male figure and so takes the side of the men. The other slaves then pray to God for the deceased woman to be accepted in the pocket of his womb. This is a link up with the baby who was also killed. They are asking for the both of them to be free.\r\nAnother poem Grace uses to convey the lives of the slave women is ‘In My foretell’. This poem goes on about the horror the slave women had to go through. In this instance the baby is not killed thitherfore it is the opposite of ‘Alaâ€⠄¢. The slave is in labour, giving birth to her ‘curled bean’ as Grace describes it. The woman’s belly is an arc of slow moon.\r\nThis shows how unwanted the babies are and that the fathers are the overseers. The colour ‘ blue’ is evil and we get the impression of what birth is like the way she squats over the dry plantain leaves and commands the human beings to receive you. The baby is being dropped here onto the ground because there are no medical facilities available. Grace says the baby is ‘my tainted, perfect child’. This is an oxymoron because she is saying twain virtual opposites together.\r\nThe hatred towards the overseers raping them is shown in the words, ‘my bastard harvest-feast’ and ‘my strange mulatto’. The second example shows that the baby’s father’s parents are mixed race and the mother does not like this. It will always remind her of the slave drivers or her captors if she e ver escapes from their grasp. Where as the first shows how appreciative the overseers are of the baby but not the mother. She wishes it wasn’t born so it did not have to become a slave. Grace uses the words ‘my sea grape’ to show how far they have had to travel before arriving at their work place or deathbeds in many instances. At the end she says ‘now my sweet one it is for you to swim’ video display that the baby should make its own decisions on its life and to begin its journey.\r\nOverall Grace Nichols poems show her hatred towards what happened to her ancestor’s long time ago and what is still happening today in some places. She believes ruling on it should be stricter and so there will be no slaves left.\r\n'