Question

With the stampeding hiss and scurry of green lemmings, midsummer’s leaves race to extinction like the roar of a Brixton riot tunneled by water hoses; they seethe toward autumn’s fire—it is in their nature, being men as well as leaves, to die for the sun. The leaf stems tug at their chains, the branches bending like Boer cattle under Tory whips that drag every wagon nearer to apartheid. And, for me, that closes the child’s fairy tale of an antic England—fairy rings, thatched cottages fenced with dog roses, a green gale lifting the hair of Warwickshire. I was there to add some color to the British theater. "But the blacks can’t do Shakespeare, they have no experience." This was true. Their thick skulls bled with rancor when the riot police and the skinheads exchanged quips you could trace to the Sonnets, or the Moor’s eclipse. Praise had bled my lines white of any more anger, and snow had inducted me into white fellowships, while Calibans howled down the barred streets of an empire that began with Caedmon’s raceless dew, and is ending in the alleys of Brixton, burning like Turner’s ships. –Midsummer, Derek Walcott Identify and analyze two allusions in Midsummer. Write a short paragraph explaining what these allusions reveal about the speaker’s perspective.

Answer 1

Answer: The speaker perspective is of the poet as a tourist

Explanation:

These allusions show that the speaker could engaged his head but his heart was left in neutral. This paragraph reveals the gore of African slavery and the shed blood of Amerindian cultures. This reaches back to Bartolomé de las Casas's The Devastation of the Indies, which catalogues classic, Occidental savagery, but also the first modern genocide. In general the allusions talk about the racism the speaker perceives in the place where he is visiting. In other words, the speaker merely observes the tragic events from a distance.

Answer 2

Answer:

The speaker in Derek Walcott’s Midsummer makes allusions to the Brixton riots. These allusions show that the speaker is thinking about racial tension in England and sees England as a place of unrest and discord. The speaker also makes allusions to many different Shakespearean texts. Although someone tells the speaker that black actors have “no experience” with Shakespeare, these allusions display the speaker’s deep knowledge of Shakespeare. These allusions help reveal his perspective that British culture belongs to people of all races.

Explanation: