This page consists of summary of the Vanity by Birago Doip, its detailed analysis and finally its full text so that you can be more familiar with the poem.
Vanity is a poem written by an African poet Birago Diop from Senegal, a France colonized country in Africa. He lived between 1906 and 1989. Diop as one of the venerable and praiseworthy mortals of Negritude literary movement in Senegal loved and made all possible efforts to nurture culture that belonged to traditional society of Africa. He felt extremely wretched to see African elites repudiating their ways of living so as to embrace and cleave together with foreign culture introduced by the Westerners.
Summary And Analysis
The poet persona starts the poem by asking pitiful and contemptible Africans to make known who will lend ears to them when have to tell all what they shall one day have to say even saying it gently, gently.
According to the poem, what may be interest of the Africans to tell is nature of the "torment" they may be encountered for welcoming sophisticated culture of the Westerners.
Whenever African becoming engraved as result of loss of valuable culture of theirs especially when begin to feel remorse for their stance towards the cries of their ancestors, inquiries are made rhetorically that what eyes, heart and ear will watching their large mouth, listen to their clamoring and ear their pitiful anger respectively without laughter.
The poem persona urge his fellow Africans to go back to their ways of living before it becomes too late for them. The beauty of their own culture is bright enough for Africans to embrace. The contemporary society of Africa should abstain from addressing traditional culture as barbaric, outdated or esoteric so as to avoid the punishment that may associate with such.
The poem persona made use of features of nature "air", "water" and "earth" to depict what is natural that remain intact; likewise, the abandoned culture is supposed to remain intact locking out modernization and so called civilization.
Themes of "Vanity"
Theme of Ancestors' Wisdoms Abandonment.
The poem makes it clear that Africans have really abandoned the wisdom and knowledge that their forefathers employed to sustain their traditional culture. The generation of civilization depicts their ancestors' wisdom as barbaric and outdated and therefore neglect it completely in favour of modern heritage.Theme of Pain and Distress.
Neglecting the wisdom which they supposed to embrace has to bring about pain and distress when it is time. At that time, they will cry in agony while no one will get ready to listen to them but mock them.
Clamoring heart, pitiful anger and large mouth are significantly products of sorrow for losing something valuable which is nothing else other than African value.
Literary Mechanise Used
Rhetorical Question: this is a question that requires demands no response from listeners despite that being asked in normal way. It is context of the question that turn it to rhetorical question. In the poem there are some rhetorical questions that meant for emphasis as a result of serious mindset of the poem persona. All the questions end with question mark.
They are:
“Who then will hear our voices without laughter?”
“Who then will hear us without laughter?”
“What eyes will watch our large mouth?”
“What heart will listen to our clamouring?”
“What ear to our sobbing hearts?”.
- Synecdoche: this is a figure of speech that specialized in standing a part of something to represent whole of what the part belongs to. Head or hand can represent human being. In the poem therefore, "ears", "eyes", and "hearts" stand for human beings in the poem.
- Repetition: remember that this has to do with appearance of one or two lines more than a time in a poem. In Vanity, line eight " What eyes will watch our large mouths" is repeated in line ten. While line eleven " What hearts will listen to our clamoring?" is repeated in line twenty-nine.
- Simile: this is an indirect comparison of two things of conflicting or different attributes together using "like" or "as". For instance, the growing of pitiful anger is said to look like a tumor.
"What ear to our pitiful anger
"Which grows in us like a tumor".
When they have spoken to us in their clumsy voices;
Just as our ears were deaf."
"To their cries, to their wild appeals
Just as our ears were deaf."
FULL TEXT OF VANITY
Vanity
If we tell, gently, gently
All that we shall one day have to tell,
Who then will hear our voices without laughter,
Sad complaining voices of beggars
Who indeed will hear them without laughter?
All that we shall one day have to tell,
Who then will hear our voices without laughter,
Sad complaining voices of beggars
Who indeed will hear them without laughter?
If we cry roughly of our torments
Ever increasing from the start of things
What eyes will watch our large mouths
Shaped by the laughter of big children
What eyes will watch our large mouth
What hearts will listen to our clamoring?
What ear to our pitiful anger
Which grows in us like a tumor
In the black depth of our plaintive throats?
Which grows in us like a tumor
In the black depth of our plaintive throats?
When our Dead comes with their Dead
When they have spoken to us in their clumsy voices;
Just as our ears were deaf
To their cries, to their wild appeals
Just as our ears were deaf
They have left on the earth their cries,
In the air, on the water,
where they have traced their signs for us blind deaf and unworthy Sons
Who see nothing of what they have made
Who see nothing of what they have made
In the air, on the water, where they have traced their signs
And since we did not understand the dead
Since we have never listened to their cries
If we weep, gently, gently
If we cry roughly to our torments
What heart will listen to our clamoring,
What ear to our sobbing hearts?
Olufajo Olulekan
Hello Reader, thanks for your visitation. I am Olufajo Olulekan, a blogger by passion, inspiring in helping people online with useful information. I usually blog on another different platform but create this blog to make people knowledgeable about English Language, Literature in English, and Literary Texts Summary and Analysis
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