Walcott A Far Cry from Afica
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In "A Far Cry from Africa", Derek Walcott writes a very painful and harsh
anecdote between ethnic conflicts in South Africa. This story is brought upon by
the Mau Mau Uprising, which is the bloody battle in 1950's between Europeans
settlers and the Kikuyu Tribe. The white settlers came to their region and pushed
the native tribe aside and took control over the government and farmland. Derek
Walcott story rises a very important question in people's minds that is still a huge
issue today: Who is served by Anglophone African literature?
The last stanza in "A Far Cry from Africa", contains judgments among the
Mau Mau Uprising, that ends with controversy. Derek Walcott compares the Mau
Mau Uprising to the Spanish War. At the end of the poem Walcott states that he
is the product of both African and European heritage. This heritage is confusing
because it makes him not know how to feel about the Mau Mau Uprising.
Walcott feels sickening from both sides of his heritage, but gives evidence at the
end of the poem that he will abandon neither heritage because he is both. Line
25 presents a recurring view of the Mau Mau Uprising as just another conflict...