'Half-Caste' by
John Agard
Half
Caste is one of the most famous poems about racism lately. As we know, John
Agard wrote it. In this poem, we can feel the emotion of him talking about
racism and the difference of color between people. He describes natural and
beautiful things that are 'half-half' and he shows us that they are beautiful
anyway. This poem reflects his anger against all of the people who have called
them half-caste throughout his life in Britain. He was called a half-caste
because he had a Caribbean father and a Portuguese mother, so they said he
wasn’t ''pure''. The tone of this poem is very unusual but powerful at the same
time because he talks as if he wasn't very intelligent and this makes the poem
more interesting. We can evidence this when he always uses the rhetorical
question 'Explain yuself / wha yu mean /
when yu say half-caste'. The purpose of this is to make the reader be more
interested about the poem and also to make the audience feel connected to the
fact that there are some people who talk like that and it seems like a
'mixture, but they are humans anyway.
The
fact that John Agard uses contrast between the racist term and something
beautiful such as the weather of a piano symphony makes us think about how
every human being should be treated the same way. When Agard writes 'yu mean tchaikovsky / sit down at dah piano
/ and mix a black key / wid a white key / is a half-caste symphony?' The
evidence of this is to see how the human mind is always trying to be better
than others and also the fixed paradigm about superiority. The mean reason he
uses dialect 'Explain yuself' is to
show that he has a Caribbean side of his life. With dialect we are able to see
that he is angry of being called half-caste but also that he is not embarrassed
of admitting that he has two different cultures in his past. The use of
metaphors in Half-Caste is the main element of writing. He uses metaphors to
compare half-caste to music, weather and art. For example, we compares half-caste
to weather when he says 'yu mean when
Picasso / mix red and green / is a half caste canvas?'. This means that
Agard wants to ask us if having two different parts makes people or thing be
incomplete or without importance. The line breaks in this poem are interesting
because it give each line importance and a pause that blends perfectly with the
next line, as we can see when John says 'Explain yuself / wha yu mean / when
you say half-caste'. The use of the
retorical question 'explain yuself' makes us think that Agard is writing to us
personally and that he is clamming for an answer.
The
rhythm of this poem gives it an element that makes the reading interesting. The
line breaks are the most important part of the rhythm because we can see
clearly each idea that John Agard wants us to thing about. There is almost no
rhyme in the poem but for example when he says 'in fact some o dem cloud / half-caste till dem overcast / so spiteful
dem don't want de / sun pass / ah rass?' we can see that there is evidence
of rhyme and that he talks about the weather in London.
In
conclusion, my impression of the poem is that Agard was very brave in order to
talk like that to all of the people that have been mean to him in the present
and in his past years. Also the fact that he compared racism to beautiful
things makes us think that we should be tolerant and that all human beings are
exactly the same. It doesn’t matter if you are black or white, or if you have
two different cultures, what really matter is for the whole world to be united
and to be able to share and respect our similars. After reading this, my
paradigm about racism is bigger, so now I know that people feel terrible when
they are called mean names or worse things.
