ENG2602-Summary

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johannesburg my city a paved with das gold b deceptions and lies c dreams come here to die d traffic flows in the sick e vein of life as we tick e with the eternal time-bomb f of our own exti ... nction g the walk of uncertainty a swaggering to disguise h our staggering heart-treads h we’re all recession whipped g into the repression machine g mirrored in the glass-towers i the green pastures of wealth j are vaults of death j nothing is secure k neither politics nor prayer k can guarantee the future k jo’burg my city a here our birth is a lie d we just rush to die d without living h just existing h to keep the money belt spinning h only the wise come out winning h & the rest l feet first l as pawns m of evil hand or ogre eye d or else n on the fringe o of our own insanity a The poet Lesego Rampolokeng was born into a working-class Catholic family in Soweto and then moved to Johannesburg township. He was raised by his mother because of the early death of his father, who used to work on a platinum mine (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/lesego-rampolokeng). In comparison with the manner of a first person perspective and use of language the speaker of the poem “speaks” in “Johannesburg”, and in what type of culture and living conditions the poet came from one can argue that the poet and the speaker is the same ‘person’ (from the same perspective). The use of free verse and no usage of punctuation throughout the poem provide the readers the image of the speaker talking to the city - as if trying to bring his thoughts and concerns to the city’s attention. Thus, the whole poem is an apostrophe. The speaker claims the city as his own in contrast with how he describes the city to value materialism, greed and personal gain while dehumanising its inhabitants thus, one can argue that the speaker’s tone and attitude is of a tragicomedy. The poem can also be argued as a global metaphorical contrast – degradation and oppression in contrast with dreams and life, the contrasting images of evil and good. The repetition of the ‘s’, ‘d’ and ‘th’ sounds throughout stanza one provide the readers with an image of evil like a snake sailing nearby. “johannesburg my city” (stanza1, line1) could be in paradox with “dreams come here to die” (stanza1, line4). Johannesburg is known in South-Africa as the ‘city of gold and dreams and opportunities’ meanwhile, the speaker uses personification stating that ‘dreams die’ as if it is a living being to highlight that the people that “come here” with goals to achieve their dreams are misguided and naïve. In line two and three one can argue that these two lines are the reasons why ‘dreams die’ in the ‘city of gold’ - the speaker describes Johannesburg as “paved with judas gold, deceptions and lies”. In the Catholic and Christian religion one learns about the man called ‘Judas’ was one of the twelve apostles and betrayed Jesus to the authorities for thirty pieces of silver that led to Jesus’s crucifixion (The Holy Bible, New International Version. 1982. Matthew 26.). Thus line two links with line three because line three can be argued as explaining what “judas gold” is referred to- as “deceptions and lies” and that is why “dreams die” in “johannesburg my city” – the city that dehumanises humanity. The second stanza metaphorically describes how humans are their own enemy because we are busy causing our own death through not caring about nature for the greed after money that opens more mines, etc. causing more pollution. The speaker provides an image when he states in the first and second line of stanza two; “traffic flows in the sick, vein of life…” metaphorically and ironically that thousands of people are on this wide road like a highway, as if they choose the easy way out which is not the ‘right way’ or the ‘righteous path’. The adverb ‘as’ in line two of stanza two could be argued to refer and emphasise to things happening while the people go on with the ‘wrong path of life’, as if to stress out the situation happening while nobody realises it. “…as we tick, with the eternal time-bomb, of our own extinction” (staza2, line 2-4). The speaker now creates an image of while everyone is running after greed or whatever ‘wrong path’ one chose, that our time is running out even though time is never-ending but our live-span is. He uses irony to emphasise the time that is busy running out through the word “tick” in line two which could be argued as onomatopoeia. The repetition of the ‘s’ sound is found in stanza two to provide an image of evil and the repetition of the hard ‘t’, ‘k’ and ‘f’ sounds create a feeling of hardness, a sense of abruptness that emphasises the manner of how abruptly ones live can end any second now and adds to sinister nature of this “sick vein” of greed and materialism (wrong path) everyone is following. ........................................CONTINUED............................................. [Show More]

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