II. 3. Point of view
In any literary field, this technique is very important. Let
us draw some definitions of point of view.
CAMBRIDGE INTERNATIONAL DICTONARY OF ENGLISSH defines point of
view as «Someone's particular way of looking at or considering some thing,
or his opinion about something.»
OXFORD ADVANCED LEARNER'S DICTIONARY defines it as «an
attitude, an opinion.»
INTERMEDIATE DICTIONARY defines it as «a position from
which one looks at something; an attitude of mind».
These different definitions help us analyse the poem with
complete confidence according to the way the poem is written.
But in a technical sense, and in any literary work point of
view refers to the identity of the person who records the events of any story
in a novel, a poem, that is the person who speaks, tells the story says
professor Louis GBAIBA LONU in his course of Explanation of texts of English
authors 2nd licence.
The points of view used in Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol are
«Lawino and Ocol».The poem is told from the point of view of Lawino
herself in first person. In Song of Lawino, Lawino the narrator is into action.
In Song of Ocol, Ocol also is into action. To mean that Lawino is the spokesman
and Ocol is the spokesman in the poems too.
Lawino records her laments, she describes her native
civilization, and she condemns her husbund's disdain for Afeican ways.
In Song of Lawino, the point of view gives us its objective
look; attitude towords her comptemporary whitemen's civilization. In the 1st
person of view «I», «me», Lawino presents her laments:
«Husband, now you despise me
Now you treat me with spite
And say I have inherited the
Stupidity of my aunt;
Son of the chief,
Now you compare me
With the rubbish in the rubbish pit» (SOL, P.34).
Lawino condemns her husband's disdain for African ways,
describing her native civilization as beautiful, meaningful, and deeply
satisflying:
«Listen Ocol my old friend,
The ways of your ancestors
Are good,
Their customs are solid
And not hollow...» (SOL, P. 41).
The narrator laments her husband's disrespect for his own
culture and questions the logic of many western customs:
«At the height of season
The progressive and civilized ones
Put on blanket suits
And woolen socks from Europe...» (SOL, P. 45).
Lawino continues to lament that Ocol has rejected her and his
own Acholi heritage in favor of a more modern lifestyle perceiving progress;
Ocol devotes his attention to Clementine (Tina), his westernized mistress:
«Ocol rejects the old type
He is in love with a modern woman
Ocol is no longer in love with
The old type;
He is in love with a modern girl
The name of the beautiful one
Is Clementine» (SOL, PP.36-37).
Ocol is no longer in love with the old type:
He is in love with a modern girl. The name of the beautiful
one is Clementine (PP.36-37).
Lowino claims that Ocol, her husband, hotes her and loves her
rival, his darling wife. Ocol has turned against the old and follen for the
new, he is in hot pursuit of some girl who has been at school, the said beauty
goes by the name of Clementine:
Brother, when you see
Clementine
The beautiful one aspires
To look like a white woman; (SOL,
P.37).
Lawino continues to claim that Clementine douches powder all
over her face, looking deadly pale like a night dancer on the verge of the
nightly tyrips to dance naked, obscene, and bewitching. She becomes sickly lach
time; she smells Joyce soap provider which does not agree with her. Powder is a
thing that suits Europeans; they are already dirty white. But when a black girl
heaps dust on her face, she looks sickly pale. Powder chemicals have corroded
Clementine's face; her fore head is bleached, there are brown patches
here and the as if affected by rainbow, or struck by lightning flash. The skin
of her face looks like a baby's. To her, that's the thing her face is freckled,
she looks like Hyena. Her neck and arms still look nice like ours. Clementine
looks like a person burnt by fire, like the bushbuck burnt in a ranging grass
fire. Her mouth swollen red likes yaws; and her overgrown hair, with hair
standing out like owl's, her eyes pale and wan:
«He lips are red-hot
Like glowing charcoal
She resembles the
wildcat
Her mouth is like raw
yours...» (SOL, P.37).
Finally the point of view apologies by asking forgiveness to
the reader:
I beg you don't think I am a busing my rival, no, or that my
tongue waxes grand because of anger, no: I mourn with pity my lost friend
Clementine. I won't deny I am prey to being jealous I won't deceive you: we all
get jealous once in a while jealous strikes you all of a sudden like a fit;
but, jealous aside Tina is a pity to be hold.
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