Cultural Perspective London Breed By Benjamin Zephaniah example essay topic

In this essay I will be comparing the work of two poets Benjamin Zephaniah and Robert Lowell to show the different ways that their cultures influence the ways they express their views of the world. The poems that I have chosen are "Kill them Before Ramadan" by Benjamin Zephaniah, "For Union Dead" by Robert Lowell and "London Breed" also by Benjamin Zephaniah. Two poems "Kill them Before Ramadan" and For Union Dead" are critical of the degeneration of morals in America today. As both of the poems have a similar theme the differences in the poems highlight the differences in the cultural backgrounds of the poets. The third poem "London Breed" questions how civilized we have actually become, looking at the way the people of London live.

I intend to analyze each poem with culture in mind and then I will write a detailed conclusion. The first poem I am going to analyze is "Kill them before Ramadan". This poem conveys what it means to be Muslim. It is called "Kill them Before Ramadan" because the Americans wanted to attack before Ramadan so as not to be seen as evil for attacking pious Muslims praying to their god. This poem shows the Americans are waging a propaganda war and are busy trying to convince themselves why they have to kill the Muslims. The statement "It is a time for the Muslims of Iraq (Like the Muslims of London) " shows the poet's belief that all people are equal no matter the race or religion or even where they live.

When Zephaniah writes "The soul is cleansed by prayer (they say) And the body by fasting" he is describing what happens in Ramadan. "Families unite in the honour of the family". This is describing how the families all get together and celebrate and could be likened to the Christian Christmas. "That there is but one God And God is great".

For emphasis he uses phrases from the Koran to show the Muslims are in prayer. He ends the stanza with "So we must (we are told) Kill them before Ramadan" this shows that the killers are under orders. This also shows the common view of the crusading Europeans held by Muslims. In the second stanza he writes "In the houses of Baghdad They are preparing to proclaim That Allah is eternal Allah is absolute", This again uses phrases from the Koran and shows that the Muslims are preparing to give their allegiance to Allah through prayer. The statement "Before their Korans open their hearts Before their hearts are filled with beliefs We should do the right thing, We must Kill them before Ramadan". is saying that before the Koran begins to instill them with belief the Americans must do "the right thing" which is to kill the Muslims. It also emphasizes the view of the Muslims that the Europeans and Americans are against their religion.

Zephaniah also repeats the word before emphasizing his point. In the third stanza he writes "Evacuate the Europeans" to show that we value Europeans and Americans higher than every one else. He makes an important point with "Our modern economy paid for modern soldiers, Brave and fearless teenagers Resolute and steadfast from the Projects and the Council estates", bringing out the irony because you think of heroes and veterans as being brave and fearless but he shocks you into realizing that these soldiers are teenagers from the poorer parts of society. Using two adjectives twice to describe the soldiers emphasizes how heroic the soldiers are.

When he writes "Fearing no one but the president of the world" he means the President of the U.S.A., this shows that the poet thinks Americans consider themselves superior to other cultures. "And the God who made his sex drive" suggests that the war is about power or manliness. In the fourth stanza he uses a clever image by writing "Great hypocrites shed your plutonium tears" ie he is condemning the use of depleted-plutonium shells while accusing Bush and Major of shedding crocodile tears for their intentions. He mocks Britain for following the U.S. A into the Gulf War "Your great Britain is mighty independent" with a clever play on the words "great" and "mighty". He mocks the Allies for their claims that all the victims were not innocent "And all those innocent victims Are not really innocent victims?"Why should you not believe That all the innocent victims Are your innocent victims?" this mocks the allied governments for saying that the victims are not actually innocent but are all the victims the so called 'innocent victims'.

"Tell your children that you are right", points how we educate our children with propaganda and he goes on be sarcastic about the American materialistic way of life. "Make sure they have more than enough clean drinking water Candy at the appropriate times And do not forget to set the central heating correctly". This mocks how we lead our lives while people are starving and dying of cold in places like Iraq or Africa. "Let us slide in to our tabloid truth" points out how the tabloids make their own truth and how this culture is dominated by the media. In the fifth stanza he writes "In London and Glasgow In New York and Boston again Zephaniah uses two adjectives together to emphasize a point.

Wives wait in agony Mothers are on edge" Zephaniah then goes on to show that Muslims anywhere in the world are the same by using the same poetic structure to emphasize his point. "In London and Glasgow In New York and Boston Muslims are praying in agony Muslims are living on the edge, And the Muslims And the Christians all agree, War is bad War is bad". The repeated line emphasizes the point that "War is bad". He is showing the points of view when he says "Saddam is bad" and "War is bad". It suggests that Saddam and war are as bad as each other. It also shows the link between them, that Saddam is having war waged on him by America and Britain.

In the sixth stanza it Zephaniah uses a metaphor "The "Desert Fox" is no longer sly but illogical", The operation was called by many Americans Desert Fox and here Zephaniah likens it to a real fox which is normally sly but he calls this fox's actions illogical. "It kills with confidence and no longer requires a UN mandate", here he is saying that the UN used to control the Allies but now they ignore it. He is also likening the UN mandate to a leash which should control this "Fox."We must tell our enemy that we know God created them from a mere clot of congealed blood. ", This is both a reference to the Islamic view on creation and an insult and a slur on their culture. "Let us tell them that we too believe in Allah, We too have stories about Abraham, Jacob, Isaac and the tribes, We even have Muslim friends And token Muslim Lords and Ladies". This seems to be saying that the Americans have taken over their culture points how our culture has adapted and how we sympathize with them.

"Let them know this is and it is called " globalization", Zephaniah has a dislike for globalization and this is his own personal view. We know this from studying other poems written by him. The western governments would argue that it gives the Iraqis the wrong idea about globalization. "And let them know Dis is not a war dis is a bombing", Here Zephaniah uses colloquial language to show the common view from the people and to make the reader notice. He claims this is not a war but plain murder.

"But we do not want to hurt their holiness Intrude on their spirituality Or disrespect their religion So we must Kill them before Ramadan" is ironic because we are doing all the things in the quotation. The Allies want to attack before Ramadan because if they attacked during Ramadan then they would look like the bullies and lose respect from countries world wide. "Oh my God it's Ramadan. Dear Soldier Would you like the opportunity to earn some overtime pay?" When Zephaniah writes "Oh my God" it is blasphemous and mocks the Muslims, it shows the little respect the Allies had for their God compared with the Muslims who are praying and thanking him for their existence. It is saying that it is now Ramadan and they must hurry to finish the war. It makes a fine last line because it ties off all the loose ends.

It also shows how overtime is a feature of life in an American democracy. The next poem that I am going to analyze is "For Union Dead" by Robert Lowell. It regrets the lack of morals in modern America and the remaining racial tensions. It is centered on Boston the poet's childhood home. The poet starts off by describing the neglected, broken state of the South Boston Aquarium and how he would stare at the fish as a child and long to burst the air bubbles. "Once my nose crawled like a snail on the glass" and seems to be attracted to the "dark downward and vegetating kingdom of the fish and reptile".

Then as if coming back to reality the poet jolts the reader into the present. The poet describes some thing that seems to be a fence but the line is unfinished until the next stanza. He uses a metaphor to describe the goings on behind that fence "Behind their cage yellow dinosaur steamshovels were grunting". He likens the fence to a cage trying to keep the "yellow dinosaur steamshovels" from escaping instead of trying to keep people out and he calls the bulldozers dinosaurs because of their size and the noises that they make. In the sixth stanza the poet describes the surrounding area. It tells you that the state house faces a carved relief of Colonel Shaw and his men.

During the Civil War Colonel Shaw lead a regiment of black infantry to the defense of Boston. The Union was for the freedom of the slaves while the Confederates wanted to keep the blacks as slave but even though Boston was a Union stronghold it was still racist towards the blacks. By telling the reader that the relief is propped up against the vibrations coming from the construction site. He uses the word "earthquake" to describe the magnitude of the vibrations. He goes on to say that the thing being built is an underground garage.

Lowell seems to think that there are too many parking spaces because he is saying "parking spaces luxuriate" which seems to indicate his feelings for the lack of respect that is owed to Colonel Shaw and the sacrifice that he made. In the seventh stanza the poet tell us that "Two months after marching through Boston half the regiment was dead". The regiment was involved in heavy fighting when they where protecting Boston... When the poet writes "at the dedication, William James could almost hear the bronze Negroes breathe" he describes the silence at the dedication. This could be because either there were few Negroes left or that the people were respectful but I believe that it is because there were few people.

In the eighth stanza the poet comments "Their monument sticks like a fish bone in the city's throat". This vividly shows that the racial tensions are still present in 1965, a 100 years later and brings you back to the aquarium at the beginning of the poem and it seems contrasts with the tranquillity that this aquarium seemed to represent to him as a boy. The poet begins the ninth stanza by describing the Colonel using metaphors like "suffocate for privacy,"gentle tautness" and "wrenlike". The poet is saying that he only wants privacy this's because he is being stared at by these buildings he has a "gentle tautness" because he seems to be relaxing but is always in the same position every day. He also comments on how "wrenlike" he is this is because he is forever studying the things in front of him because he cannot move his eyes or head.

The poet, in the tenth stanza, describes how Colonel Shaw is dead "He is out of bounds now". Here the poet is saying that now Shaw is dead he is no longer restricted by society he is now longer boxed in as if by his duty. It could also mean that he is in either heaven or hell, the supposed after life. It could be that Lowell seems to believe in voluntary reincarnation when he writes "He rejoices in man's lovely peculiar power to choose between life and die" It could mean that Shaw could have chosen whether to live or to die but he chose death so that the slaves could be freed. The line "he cannot bend his back" means that he cannot back out of leading his men to battle. This gives the image of a man who had military discipline.

The eleventh stanza takes you back to what he was fighting for, about the first white Puritan settlers arriving from England and their churches and where the culture originally came from. In the twelfth stanza the poet comments on the passing of time and how, each year, the soldiers in the relief "grow slimmer and younger each year". This could not be happening because they are statues and statues do not age. It is an abstract view because the statues are not getting younger, he is getting older! In the thirteenth stanza Lowell writes how Shaw's father was ashamed of his son and gives a strong image when he says "Shaw's father wanted no monument except the ditch, where his son's body was thrown and lost with his 'niggers'". This show the racial tensions that were around in 1865.

In the fourteenth stanza the poet again writes about the lack of morals in America by saying that the ditch is nearer. The meaning is that the ditch or the morals that were around in 1865 are coming back again, it could also mean that the construction site is nearby. "A commercial photograph shows Hiroshima boiling" Lowell is referring to the nuclear bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. The fact that it has been used to promote a product seems as if the people have a lack of morals because the are using a picture of one of the greatest sufferings during World War 2 to advertise something. He also comments on the fact that there are no statues to those who have died in World War 2. Again in the fifteenth stanza he completes his sentence in the stanza above the picture of Hiroshima is being used to promote a safe, the "M osler safe, the 'rock of ages'".

The ironic thing about this is that in the blast of the bomb you would have most probably died but your money will survive. It shows how money is valued higher than life. The final stanza, stanza seventeen, is where Lowell breaks from his trance and describes the world. He starts with "The aquarium is gone". Lowell uses the aquarium as a metaphor for the old morals. This shocks you back to reality and starts you thinking about the ideas on morals and humanity discussed in the poem.

By likening the cars to fish he again reminds you of the aquarium metaphor. The phrase "a savage servility" contradicts itself but the more you think about it the truer it gets. It seems to be contradictory because savage means untamed but servility means to be like a servant. This links with the cars because the cars are savage because they can kill but they are servants to a human will. This could also be linked up with the Negro slaves because they were deemed as savages but were slaves or servants under the whites. This is one of the best endings to a poem that I have read.

The final poem to be analyzed from a cultural perspective London breed by Benjamin Zephaniah. The poem is about how London as a great mixture of cultures, a "melting pot", and how it still has tribes and it is now a concrete jungle despite its outward civilization. The first stanza comments on how London is a mixture of so many different cultures and goes on in the second stanza to talk about all the different foods that are contributing to the city's cultures. The poet comments "And cultures that melt and intertwine", writing about how the cultures are mixed and be come part of one diverse culture, how London has become home to many exiled people because of its open-minded view. The third stanza shows the poet's love of London and it's ever changing skyline. But it also warns of danger hinting that although London is a diverse culture it still has pollution, gun crime and drugs.

In the final stanza the poet comments on his feelings about London. "It's so cool when the heat is on And when it's cool it's so wicked" and then he goes on to comment on the city by calling it a concrete jungle using a metaphor. He also comments about how every one in London has united to create a special London breed. This poem contrasts with the other poem by Benjamin Zephaniah because it has a positive view and it also shows that cultures can co-exist it does not show the racism present in the other two poems.

The poem is a celebration of different cultures in a vibrant fashion while the other two poems are sad. This one has a very bouncy and alive feeling. Benjamin Zephaniah's poems are very loud and simple. They have few metaphors and only has a few themes which occasionally pop up in the poem. On the other hand Robert Lowell uses metaphors very often to get his point across more subtly. And has reoccurring themes and some of which run throughout the whole poem.

This could be due to there background cultures. For Benjamin Zephaniah comes from a Jamaican background so uses a very aural style. His poems seem to be shouted and have a lot of rhythm which can be traced back to the aural traditions in Africa. Yet Robert Lowell comes from a very literary tradition so uses much more metaphors and other word plays. A good example are the two poems "Kill them Before Ramadan" and "For Union Dead". Both poems are criticizing America.

Both comment on the declining morals and the consumerism and materialism that are around. The final poem "London Breed" also points out Benjamin Zephaniah's use of an aural style. It comments on how London is a melting pot of different cultures and how they all mix to become one very diverse culture a kind of "London Breed". Its main theme is that it questions how civilized we actually are in today's world. We still remain in tribes or gangs and live in this "Urban jungle" of ours.