The anvil and the hammer – structure, mood/tone, diction

Love for African culture

“Sew the old days for us, our fathers” depicts that the new African man still yearning for the aura of the original Africa custom and traditions. Thus, he pleads to the custodians of this disappearing African culture to teach them the old ways so that they, the new Africans who were born out of colonialism, will have it in their minds and hearts but outwardly live like Europeans.

 

Nationalism and patriotism

The poetic persona hopes to use the limited knowledge he got from these Europeans (snatches from their tunes) to build the African nation.  This is a spirit of nationalism in that there is the thought of a free African state built by Africans and a spirit of patriotism in that he plans to lift the new African nation up for the world to see its glory.

 

Colonialism

The theme of colonialism is highly depicted in the poem. Colonialists, just like the hammer, with force invaded the African land without any formal invitation. No African man sat on the round table of negotiation for the scramble for Africa to decide if Africans needed to be colonized. Yet they came by their own whim and caprices. Colonialism is the new forging house where African and European culture meet – estuary.

 

 

Acculturation

A process by which the culture of an isolated society changes on contact with a different one, especially a more advanced society.

The anvil and hammer symbolizes African and European culture respectively. The coming together of the two cultures created a new African way of life in which we are Africans by identity but almost Europeans by actions. Africans learnt the ways of the Europeans in the process of their contact with Europeans in an estuary known as colonialism. In this contact, much contents of African was lost.

 

 

Cultural clash

The first line of the poem, affirms “caught between the anvil and the hammer.” just as the blacksmith jams the anvil and hammer together, there is a clash of two metals with an iron to be forged in between them. This depicts the clash of African and European culture and the iron in between is the African man.

 

 

Transformation

The clash of the two cultures forged out a new African personality that in the French assimilation process is barely an African. It is a transformation. Just as the iron in-between the anvil and the hammer goes through a process of transformation into a new shape, the African man’s personality went through that process in a new forging house – colonialism.

 

Structure

The poem is a free verse with no consistent meter pattern or rhythm and it has no rhyme scheme. The first stanza discusses the meeting of two cultures and the outcome, while the second stanza lists out the ways to rebuild what was destroyed by the coming together of the two cultures.

 

Mood and Tone

The tone of poem is expressive and sounds hopeful and the mood is bittersweet, but became euphoric towards the end.

 

Diction

The language is clear and straight. In other words, it is understandable.