Ethelia Holt

A Mother in a Refugee Camp
A Mother in Refugee Camp by Chinua Achebe


No Madonna and Child could touch
Her tenderness for a son
She soon would have to forget. . . .
The air was heavy with odors of diarrhea,Of unwashed children with washed-out ribs
And dried-up bottoms waddling in labored steps
Behind blown-empty bellies. Other mothers there
Had long ceased to care, but not this one:
She held a ghost-smile between her teeth,
And in her eyes the memory
Of a mother’s pride. . . .She had bathed him
And rubbed him down with bare palms.             
She took from their bundle of possessions               
The rust-colored hair left on his skull
And then—humming in her eyes—began carefully to part it.
In their former life this was perhaps
A little daily act of no consequence
Before his breakfast and school; now she did it

Like putting flowers on a tiny grave.

 

The son is the symbol of the poem. When all aspects of life were                                                           at its worst the mother held on to the memory of her son. When the other mothers forgot, this one did not. He was the light at the end of her tunnel. I figured it was only appropriate to add the picture of the son to bring his character to life.

• Chinua Achebe was born in eastern Nigeria but was educated in English at the University of Ibadan. In 1958 Achebe wrote his first novel  titled "Things Fall Apart." After reading that book, the perspective of this poem came as no surprise. In 1971 Achebe was pushed out of his home in Enugu and forced to move to the Biafran capital, Aba. Chinua Achebe then became a senior research fellow at the University of Nigeria during the Biafran War. In 1972 the University of Massachusetts Amherst offered Chinua Achebe a professorship which led to his arrival to the U.S. that year.

• A mother and son reside in a very unsafe, dirty refugee camp during the Biafran War. The son dies in these conditions, and his mother holds on to the memory of him. It's all she has left.

• The speaker is an outside person looking in. They can analyze what's happening in their own eyes, but can't offer the perspective of the mother and what she's feeling. The speaker does however include the events in a way that still lets the audience feel the pain of the mother as if it were our own.

• The imagery the author used in his description the refugee camp, phrases like "odors of diarrhea," "washed out ribs," "blow-out bellies," and "labored steps" appealed to our senses and transported the audience into the camp. It further emphasized the suffering of the families. Ending the poem on a dark note with the metaphor increased the power of the words themselves. Having the word "tiny" beside the word "grave" created a larger sense of sorrow because the association of children with death evokes a more intense emotion. 

• This poem doesn't have rhyme scheme which adds to the personal moments within it. Rhyme scheme often adds an upbeat rhythm that wouldn't have fit with the feel of this poem. The line breaks happen pretty equally creating a uniform pattern as your eyes move from one line to the next. It makes it more predictable. An exception is line four where the author makes that specific line longer. It would be to emphasize the conditions and sort of drag it out.

• The tone of the poem was sentimental. The sentimentality comes up when the speaker goes through the mother's memories and routines she did with her son. These moments were what created the special aura. It helped the audience feel the nostalgia the mother felt.

• The theme of the poem is people clutch on to the memory of their happiness as a lifeline through their dark times.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinua_Achebe

http://www.universeofpoetry.org/nigeria_p2.shtml

https://www.biography.com/people/chinua-achebe-20617665