Introduction of Gabriel Okara
Gabriel Okara, in full Gabriel Imomotimi Gbaingbain Okara, (born April 21, 1921, Bumodi, Nigeria—died March 25, 2019, Yenagoa, Nigeria), Nigerian poet and novelist whose verse had been translated into several languages by the early 1960s.
A largely self-educated man, Okara became a bookbinder after leaving school and soon began writing plays and features for radio. In 1953 his poem “The Call of the River Nun” won an award at the Nigerian Festival of Arts. Some of his poems were published in the influential periodical Black Orpheus, and by 1960 he was recognized as an accomplished literary craftsman. Okara’s poetry is based on a series of contrasts in which symbols are neatly balanced against each other.
Poem You Laughed and Laughed and Laughed analysis
Explanation
The black sing songs with emotion in their own language. The whites can't make head or tall of it. The song sung in a harsh deep tone sounds to the whites like the misfiring, choking, and stopping of their cars. Always traveling in their cars,the whites can't think in the terms of anything except their cars.
"In your ears my song
Is motor car misfiring Stopping with a chocking cough; And you laughed and laughed and laughed."
Next the whites mock at the blacks clumsy walk . They call it "ante_natal,in human walk". It may be a ugly, untidy and a dull, heavy sound . But it is certainly expressive of their extraordinary energy. The whites do not understand it and laugh and laugh and laugh .
"In your eyes my ante_natal walk was inhuman, passing your omnivorous understandingand you laughed and laughed and laughed."
The next activity of the blacks that is laughed at wild dancing and drum beating of the black's. This is a magical ritual to them. The drum is not beaten with insensate and violence. In the hands of the black's the drum talks and pleads and expresses a variety of their moods. In fact the feeling deep "inside" they are bought out the whites don't understand these softness and,shutting themselves in their cars, laugh contemptuously.
"You laughed at my dance, you laughed at my inside, you laughed and laughed and laughed."
The Black Retaliation(Response):
The black narrator launches a intense attack on the whites. He says the whites are frozen. That is,they have no passion. They are as cold as a block of ice. All their organs, their eyes, ears, tongue etc, function without any passion. They are more dead than a live.
"But your laughter was ice_block laughter and it froze your inside, froze your voice,froze your ears, froze your eyes and froze your tongue."
They extent themselves physically in the hot sun,deep down the earth, the dangerous sea,etc. It is this constant labour that has kept the passion of negros alive. The whites are awed by the black's joy as it thaws them and makes them also a little passionate. They become curious. They ask the blacks the key to their passion. The answer given by the black's is rather simplistic.
"Because my fathers and I
are owned by the living
Warmth of the earth
Through our naked feet".
They say that walking around barefooted,they have absorbed into their system all the warmth of the earth. What is meant is that physical work keeps one vital and vibrant. The whites are revitalized because they have contact only machines,and never with the elements direct.
Themes
Racism
Concept of racism
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another.
Modern variants of racism are often based in social perceptions of biological differences between peoples. These views can take the form of social actions, practices or beliefs, or political systems in which different races are ranked as inherently superior or inferior to each other, based on presumed shared inheritable traits, abilities, or qualities.
Racism in Poem
'You laughed and laughed and laughed' brings out an emotion, feeling and pain faced by black people. This poem also brings out the sufferings faced by black people.They were laughed by white for their songs, dance and music which brought out their inner feelings of black natives which also brought out their emotions.Okara contrasting the old black indigenous culture of Africa with the white people bring tolight the iss ues pertaining to racism, colonialism and postcolonialism, poor life and modern advanced culture in a very light way full of laugh and joke. The tales of Africa are different from those of history, culture an living of the white peoples.The African tales, songs and dances to the white ear may be plea sing or may not be pleasing as because this isnot their arena.
His songs appear harsh and jazz, too much loudjust like a motor car misfiringand stopping, seem to be choking. But hearing you laugh and laugh. To the western white people his appearance and walk may incite bizarre opinions, many make you burst into a laughter.The indigenous songs of Africa and the African people's they may not understand it what the song says it, what does it mean.Again, he gives a magic dance and the drums starttal king, so full of loud beats and human thuds, by hearing it the western people are covering their eyes and smiles an laughs and laughs.
The white man moves into car and sits and laughs and laughs from there. With the beating and singing of songs, skies keep unfolding.The Africans take the things in their way and the white pe oplein their own way of scrutiny and reflection as far as traditions are concerned, racial, archetypal, indigenous and ethnic. Everything is but cold and dead with no room for earthly c ontacts and realities in the western world.And now it's my turn to laugh; Your laughter is ice-blocks. My laughter is the fire of the eye of the sky, the fire of the earth, the fire of the air,the fire of the seas and the rivers fishes animals, trees ,sand it thawed your inside,thawed your voice, thawed your ears, thawed your eyes and thawed.
If they are made sophisticated and developed, urban, mechanical an uptodate, they have something to take in their way, but the tales of the Dark Continent, that is Africa will not be the same. There is difference in it all and these may not suit their modernity, urban life and living. But this is an open space of open living as they have learnt to live in communities in the villages and like under the open skies without modern day comforts and pleasure.But the western, white people have the world of their own.
The poet says that Africa is the land where he was born, his ancestors lived and grew up. He has special attachment which he cannot forgot the warmth of nature etc.
Cultural conflict
There is cultural conflict between Western and African cultural. White people think themselves superior and black as inferior.White think as they are civilized and black as uncivilized.
White people are comparing the sound of Black people’s songs of emotions or pains with misfiring of car, because they used to criticize the voice of black people as harsh and annoying.Black people have more powerful body than Whites, and that’s why they have different style of walking – White people make fun of that style of walking etc they laughed and laughed and laughed at each and everything thing this how cultural conflict is their between both the cultural.
Modernism
In poet writer tries to look at white people as they don't live naturally in the warmth of nature but lives materialistic life.White people ignored the beauty of land and entered in their car and again started laughing.
inside wide like the sky,
instead you entered your
car and laughed and laughed and laughed"
instead you entered your
car and laughed and laughed and laughed"
Colonialism
According to Merrian Webster dictionary colonialism means domination of a people or area by a foreign state or nation the practice of extending and maintaining a nation's political and economic control over another people or area.
Even the colonialism has gone but they fixed the mindset of people that black are inferior and they started themselves thinking in same manner as colonizers have shaped their minds that black are inferior and uncivilized.
Nationalism
African starts dancing as they hear the music of drum (fun dance). They live the pure and natural life in the warmth of natute.Western live materialistic life and luxurious life think themselves superior and civilized.Black people are deeply connected with natural elements.
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