SAMPLE RHETORICAL (OR “CRITICAL”) ANALYSIS OF A POETIC TEXT
[This student analysis, adapted by DB from about.com, really only merits a “C+/B-” grade since it overanalyzes the poem. That is, it analyzes (way) too many rhetorical elements. In addition, some of the rhetorical elements it uses are also not typical ones. On the content level, it is also mistaken in going down (at least) one interpretive path that is not proven by: does the “sun” always represent the “Son,” i.e., Jesus Christ? Worst of all, the essay seems to lack focus. Like many undergraduates, the student has chosen to follow the writer’s ordering of things, instead of imposing her own order / her own analytical structure (based on finding the three most important rhetorical elements in the text).
When reading this sample analysis, make sure to click on some of the links in order to learn some of the terminology of this type of critical/rhetorical analysis! Not every link, however, is truly a “rhetorical element” and some of them are highly atypical. Re-check the list of “rhetorical elements” on your assignment sheet for a better account of them. And consult a better source, e.g., Abram’s Glossary of Literary Terms.
TITLE: Africa
AUTHOR: Claude McKay
DATE: 1922
PLACE (of composition): HARLEM, NY, USA
1 The sun sought thy dim bed and brought forth light,
2 The sciences were sucklings at thy breast;
3 When all the world was young in pregnant night
4 Thy slaves toiled at thy monumental best.
5 Thou ancient treasure-land, thou modern prize,
6 New peoples marvel at thy pyramids!
7 The years roll on, thy sphinx of riddle eyes
8 Watches the mad world with immobile lids.
9 The Hebrews humbled them at Pharaoh’s name.
10 Cradle of Power! Yet all things were in vain!
11 Honor and Glory, Arrogance and Fame!
12 They went. The darkness swallowed thee again.
13 Thou art the harlot, now thy time is done,
14 Of all the mighty nations of the sun.
In the following essay [slightly revised by Brenner], student Heather Glover offers a concise rhetorical analysis of the sonnet “Africa” by Jamaican-American writer Claude McKay. McKay’s poem originally appeared in the collection Harlem Shadows (1922). Glover composed her essay in April 2005 for a course at Armstrong Atlantic State University in Savannah, Georgia.
Consistent with Shakespearean literary tradition, Claude McKay’s “Africa” is an English sonnet relating the short but tragic life of a fallen heroine. The poem opens with a lengthy sentence of paratactically arranged clauses, the first of which states, “The sun sought thy dim bed and brought forth light” (line 1). Referencing scientific and historical discussions of humanity’s African origins, the line also alludes to the Biblical book of Genesis, in which God “brings forth light” with one command. The adjective dim demonstrates Africa’s unlighted knowledge prior to God’s intervention and also connotes the dark complexions of Africa’s descendants, unspoken figures whose plight is a recurrent subject in McKay’s work.
The next line, “The sciences were sucklings at thy breasts,” establishes the poem’s female personification of Africa and lends further support to the cradle of civilization metaphor introduced in the first line. Mother Africa, a nurturer, raises and encourages the “sciences,” actions that foretell another brightening of the world to come in the Enlightenment. Lines 3 and 4 also evoke a maternal image with the word pregnant, but return to an indirect expression of the African and African-American experience: “When all the world was young in pregnant night / Thy slaves toiled at thy monumental best.” A subtle nod to the difference between African servitude and American slavery, the lines complete an encomium of Africa’s success before the advent of “new peoples” (6).
While McKay’s next quatrain does not take the drastic turn reserved for the final couplet in Shakespearean sonnets, it clearly indicates a shift in the poem. The lines transform Africa from enterprise’s champion to its object, thereby placing the Mother of Civilization into an antithetically lower position. Opening with an isocolon that stresses Africa’s changing position–“Thou ancient treasure-land, thou modern prize”–the quatrain continues to demote Africa, placing agency in the hands of “new peoples” who “marvel at thy pyramids” (5-6). As the clichee expression of time rolling on suggests the permanency of Africa’s new condition, the quatrain concludes, “thy sphinx of riddle eyes / Watches the mad world with immobile lids” (7-8).
The sphinx, a mythical creature often used in caricatures of Egyptian Africa, kills anyone who fails to answer its difficult riddles. The image of a physically and intellectually challenging monster risks undermining the gradual degradation of Africa that is the poem’s theme. But, if unpacked, McKay’s words reveal his sphinx’s lack of power. In a demonstration of anthimeria, the word riddle acts not as a noun or verb but as an adjective that invokes the sense of perplexity usually associated with riddles or to riddle. The sphinx, then, does not invent a riddle; a riddle makes a confused sphinx. The “immobile lids” of the dazed sphinx frame eyes that do not detect the mission of the “new people”; the eyes do not move back and forth to keep the strangers in constant sight. Blinded by the activity of the “mad world,” a world both busy and crazed with expansionism, the sphinx, Africa’s representative, fails to see its imminent destruction.
The third quatrain, like the first, begins by retelling a moment of Biblical history: “The Hebrews humbled them at Pharaoh’s name” (9). These “humbled people” differ from the slaves mentioned in line 4, proud slaves who “toiled at thy monumental best” to construct an African heritage. Africa, now without the spirit of her youth, succumbs to a lowly existence. After a tricolonic list of attributes linked with conjunctions to convey the magnitude of her former excellence–“Cradle of Power! . . . / Honor and Glory, Arrogance and Fame!”–Africa is undone with one short, plain phrase: “They [i.e., those attributes] went” (10-12). Lacking the elaborate style and obvious rhetoric contained throughout the poem, “They went” powerfully understates Africa’s demise. Following that pronouncement, another declaration–“[t]he darkness swallowed thee again”– may connote the failure of their “dark” souls to reflect the light offered by the Judeo-Christian God alluded to in line 1.
In a final blow to Africa’s once shining image, the couplet offers a scathing description of her present state: “Thou art a harlot, now thy time is done, / Of all the mighty nations of the sun” (13-14). Africa thus seems to fall on the wrong side of the virgin mother-tainted whore dichotomy. The technique personification formerly used to sing her praises now condemns her. Her reputation, however, is saved by the couplet’s inverted syntax. If the lines read “Of all the mighty nations of the sun, / Thou art the harlot, now thy time is done,” Africa would be rendered a wayward woman worthy of scorn because of her licentiousness. Instead, the lines are reversed, “Thou art the harlot . . . / Of all the mighty nations of the sun.” The couplet therefore suggests that Europe and America, nations enjoying the Son and the “sun” because they are predominantly Christian and scientifically advanced, pimped Africa in their quests to own her. In a clever positioning of words, then, McKay’s Africa does not fall from grace. Rather, grace has been stolen from Africa.
Work Cited
McKay, Claude. “Africa.” Harlem Shadows: The Poems of Claude McKay. New York: Harcourt-Brace, 1922. 35.
