mother in a Refugee Camp by Chinua Achebe


Mother in a Refugee Camp       by Chinua Achebe

No Madonna and Child could touch

Her tenderness for a son

She soon would have to forget…

The air was heavy with odors of diarrhea,

Of unwashed children with washed-out ribs

And dried-up bottoms waddling in labored steps

Behind blown-empty bellies. Other mothers there

Had long ceased to care, but not this one:

She held a ghost-smile between her teeth,

And in her eyes the memory

Of a mother’s pride… she had bathed him

And rubbed him down with bare palms.

She took from their bundle of possessions

A broken comb and combed

The rust-colored hair left on his skull

And then-humming in her eyes-began carefully to part it.

In their former life this was perhaps

A little daily act of no consequence

Before his breakfast and school; now she did it

Like putting flowers on a tiny grave.

 

Chinua Achebe

Chinua Achebe was born in the Igbo village of Ogidi on 16th November 1930.  His parents’ traditional culture and Christian way of life had a great impact on Chinua.  Story telling was one of the Igbo tradition.  Achebe’s mother told him many stories to Achebe.  He was greatly attracted towards traditional village even such as masquerade ceremonies which he interestingly described in his novels and stories. 

Chinua Achebe was a Nigerian Novelist, poet, professor and a great critic.  His masterpiece work was his first novel “Things Fall Apart.”  He won a scholarship to study medicine but he preferred and changed to English literature.  As a university student he began writing stories with religious and African traditional background.  His later novels such as “No Longer at Ease”, “Arrow of God”, “and A man of the people” and “Anthills of the Savannah” made him well known in the literature world.

During the Nigerian Civil War where many were killed due to starvation and violence, he involved himself to the people for aid.  Then he started to take part in political activities.  But soon resigned after seeing the corruption in politics. He became disabled after a car crash.   

Achebe writes his novels based on Igbo society. He published large number of short stories, books for children and essays.  Until his last breath he served as Professor at David and Marianna Fisher University and professor of Africana Studies at Brown University.

 

Summary of the Poem

The poet brings out the feelings of a mother who is holding a dying son in her hands before his burial.  The mother knows the pathetic situation of their day to day life and the pain of their existence.  The poet starts the poem by comparing the sad mother to (Madonna) Mother Mary with dying Jesus in her arms.  Even this sad state of mother Mary is less painful and heartbreaking compared to the mother in a refugee camp who is holding her dying son for after the death of her son she has live without him but with his memories.

 Detail analysis

“No Madonna and Child could touch

Her tenderness for a son

She soon would have to forget…”

 The pathetic state of the mother in the refugee camp holding her dying son is compared to Mother Mary (Madonna).  But the pain of the mother in the refugee camp is more than comparison.  It’s a heartbreaking experience for a mother to accept the death of her son and to move on with her life.  She would have to learn to forget about her son and to move on with her daily routines.

 

“The air was heavy with odors of diarrhea,

Of unwashed children with washed-out ribs

And dried-up bottoms waddling in labored steps

Behind blown-empty bellies. Other mothers there

Had long ceased to care, but not this one:”

 In the next four line the poet describes the smell of the disease and illness, the death fills the camp, the uncleaned children and the smell of diarrhea, and their blown empty bellies are bringing a pathetic and horrifying situation of the children and the helpless situation of the parents and people. They suffer with poverty, they dye with hunger, they struggle with sickness such as kwashiorkor, they live in fear and they learn to live with all these chaos.  The poet brings out the helpless situation of the people who are ignored and neglected and indirectly the poet says they are in the camp due to certain disaster.  It can be due to war or any calamity. But no one is there to take responsibility to these people’s needs.

 

“……………………But not this one:

She held a ghost-smile between her teeth,

And in her eyes the memory

Of a mother’s pride… she had bathed him

And rubbed him down with bare palms.

She took from their bundle of possessions

A broken comb and combed

The rust-colored hair left on his skull

And then-humming in her eyes-began carefully to part it.

In their former life this was perhaps

A little daily act of no consequence

Before his breakfast and school; now she did it

Like putting flowers on a tiny grave.”

These lines says about the difference between mothers.  Other mothers used to this painful existence and they care less and they could not struggle with their poverty.  They prefer death rather than suffering every minute.  They are ready to die.  But the poet describes about this mother who is holding her dying son as a different one.  She smiles which hides her pain.  She knows that she is holding her son for the last time.  Her motherhood makes her to be bold and she cleans him before the burial, she combs his hair which is rust as he must have suffered with kwashiorkor. Her eyes signs her feelings for her dear son. Achebe reflects that same action of a mother to her son in day to day life has no effect as all mothers are happy to do it before their children go to school.  But this mother’s action has a great impact as if laying flowers on a tiny grave, she decorates her son before laying him under the earth.

The poem paints the feelings of a mother who sees her son dying in her arms. The strong popular image of Madonna is compared to the suffering mother but the poet could not hide the truth that the pain of Mother Mary is less than the mother who is holding her dying son accepting the fact of real life as she has to move on with her life without son. The setting is refugee camp where this sad incident takes place.  The camp is full sickness smell.   The poet brings out the sense of smell of death and chaotic feelings which could evoke the readers.  The Metaphor “humming eyes” of the mother clearly tells the situation and suffering of the mother.  The poet’s message is clear.  Refugee camp is for those who needs shelter who struggle to survive in the midst of war and other calamities.  But the mother and her dying son convey the message that death is much better then living in such refugee camps. 

Literary Devices

Theme

Human struggle to survive, and the love of a mother for her dying son.

Metaphor

“Humming eyes” indicates the tears in her eyes.  She is crying for the dying son.

Simile

“Like putting flowers on a tiny grave” she does her duties as a mother even after the death of her son.

The enjambment (a line of verse that flows on into the next line without a pause.) the poet uses the enjambment to show the life of children pouring out of them as the sickness burns them.

No particular Rhyme scheme and the whole poem is one stanza and it is a free verse.

 Time

Comparison is easy and make the readers to understand.

We can split the poem into three sections.

Future is seen at the beginning 1 to 3 lines.

Present is running from 4 to 16

The past is from 17 to 20.

Form

Two stanzas with different lengths.  Short lines with strong meanings which explains the struggles of people in refugee camp.

Language

Simple language to bring out strong sense.  The whole poems conveys the heartbreaking pain of a mother. The language and the description touches the readers.

Repetitions of “Washed/Unwashed”, “ghost and “mother echoes and add heaviness to the poem.

Imagery

The Madonna and the child is a religious image of Mother Mary and Jesus. It brings out the sad experience of the mothers.

“Skull”,” rib”, and “grave” are skeletal imagery.

Achebe writes what he see around him.  He expresses them in simple language with strong sense.

The poem Mother in a Refugee Camp was written during the Nigerian Civil War. During this unfortunate period Achebe wrote what he could see in such situation.  All his descriptions are not for poetic pleasure, but for the society to see, feel and to stand for the poor and downtrodden, it’s our responsibility not give way for establishing refugee camps. They are not to give life and to reform but to make the life worse and worst.  Achebe expects everyone to stand for the poor and needy.  The world should reform.  It should be our dream and responsibility to see a world without war and poverty and hunger.

 


 


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