Hello and welcome to another Try Tutors video. In today's video we're going to be analysing the poem Cockroaches by Mari Yamp. So the poet was born in Kenya in 1927. He is a writer and a poet and a university lecturer. It's worth noting that he was born in Kenya in 1947. Kenya was colonised by the British for a period of time and they gained their independence in 1963. This is significant to note because in the figurative interpretation of this poem we're going to discuss colonialism.
So the title of this poem is Cockroaches and it's one of the most sort of impactful titles of a poem I think because the connotations we associate with cockroaches immediately spring to mind. So obviously a cockroach is a type of insect but the associations and the connotations we have are that they're pests, that they're invasive. we have very very negative perception of cockroaches.
So this immediately sets up the rest of the poem. Turn on the light and helter-skelter they scuttle to their dark shelters. So this very first stanza we start with turn on which is imperative, which is a command. Turn on the light, we know that cockroaches are nocturnal animals, so the dark shelters references.
their preference to dark spaces. So turning on the light is going to disrupt the cockroaches sense of safety. And helter skelter, helter skelter means disorderly, you're moving in a disorderly haste and confusion. They scuttle, scuttle means you run hurriedly.
Notice the use of the exclusive pronoun they, so we're having the speaker is talking sort of from the human perspective and then he's distancing himself from the cockroaches. This is important in our literal understanding of the poem, also in our figurative one. Notice the alliteration, skelter and scuttle, that s sound, which mimics the cockroach's hasty runaway. Cut them off, once again, a command. From their hideouts, block their many approaches, and see cockroaches in hopeless flurry and helpless worry.
So cut them off, commanding once again. From there, notice all these exclusive pronouns being used to show this distinction between the humans and the cockroaches. I know it seems pretty obvious in terms of literal, but keep it in mind for figurative. Hideouts, this is reference to their shelters again, but you use the word hideout, hideout has a connotation of like you're a criminal and you have to hide out, you have to go away from um you know you have to hide from regular society for a reason.
So because the other behavior towards the cockroaches indicates that they have done something wrong. But from the description that we've seen about the cockroaches just being in their dark shelters, they don't seem to have actually done anything wrong. They're just sort of acting normally. But their reaction to them is extremely volatile.
Block. Block is a word by itself on the line, and this is another command, but it also shows how we must make the It's as, you know, as one word on a singular line, it's like we must isolate the cockroaches. There are many approaches. Approaches, once again, it has this like sort of sinister connotation. Their approaches could maybe be like their attempts to seek food and shelter.
But the dictionary sounds ominous, like a criminal. Like, you know, they're going to try and approach you. They're going to try and cause chaos. And seek cockroaches in hopeless flurry and helpless worry.
Notice that approaches and cockroaches rhyme and then flurry and worry rhyme. And the speaker does not really come off in a good light in these two last lines of this stanza. He wants to witness the suffering of the cockroaches, it seems. Notice the use of hopeless and helpless, both with that less suffix, which showcases how the speaker wants to deprive the cockroaches of any form of hope.
or help. But who ordained the crash full of sandals on these shy creatures? And now we have a shift.
So but always indicates a shift. And here we go from this commanding sense to this questioning sense. And the speaker asked who ordained, meaning who gave power to the crash full of sandals, crash full, think of the connotations of crash, it's violent and aggressive connotations.
of sandals and you can just think of how humans typically get rid of cockroaches by you know just like stepping on them. So sandals is a form of synecdoche, it's a path that represents a whole because obviously he's not saying that the sandals really have the power but it's the humans who have the power, it represents people. But the use of sandals shows that this is the only thing the cockroaches actually see.
They only see the sandal that's being sort of stamped on them. But it is reference to humans who are being violent. On these shy creatures. So shy, this diction of shy, adds to the cockroaches'sense of victimhood.
That the cockroaches in this poem, they're seen as hopeless and helpless and shy. The picture is being created that they are victims. And notice the rhetorical question at the end of the poem? It makes the reader, not the end of the poem, sorry, the end of the stanza, it makes the reader think or consider the status quo in a new way.
Like we always just assume, oh yeah, you know, humans and cockroaches have this, this, this power dynamic, but now we have to consider it. There isn't also actually an answer to this question, like there's no real answer to justify this brutality. Or is it their love of darkness holds them suspect?
So or, this indicates a contemplative tone, is it their love of darkness, meaning they love dark spaces, and therefore they perhaps get a reputation for evil? Humans don't understand this love that they have for the darkness that holds them suspect, that makes them suspicious to humans, that humans want to treat them badly, they don't trust them. Readers are left considering this with the question mark and linking the literal to the figurative extended metaphor with this final question.
So let's quickly have a discussion about the literal versus the figurative because we've discussed this poem in a literal sense which makes sense but definitely the figurative is going to offer us a deeper meaning than just you know cockroaches and humans and that power dynamic. literal is obviously the cockroaches and the humans and that power dynamic but the figurative is that this is an extended metaphor and the cockroaches are rep or the cockroaches represent oppressed people and specifically people suffering under colonialism and the speaker seems to be from the powerful colonial perspective so as we said earlier the cockroaches are described as shy and hopeless these are the oppressed people African people who have been disrupted and who have been violently treated by the colonial powers. And this is in contrast to those in power where diction like cut and hold them suspect is used. The colonial forces were aggressive, territorial and disruptive to the natural ways of the people and their lifestyles.
They tried to crush African people and were brutal just as humans are when they encounter a cockroach. So you can notice the effectiveness of this metaphor in that humans The human power dynamic with cockroaches is extremely violent, yes, and so comparing that to how colonials treated African people really emphasizes the sense of brutality and aggression and inhumanity of their actions. Stanza three, that question is quite powerful, and this is where the speaker asks, how can they get away?
How can the colonials get away with so much violence? Who gave them permission to invade, to disrupt, and to brutally treat African people? And stanza four also asks another question, asks if the colonists act this way because of their racial prejudices and their unwillingness to recognize Africans as fellow human beings. So definitely the first two stanzas is one part of the poem and the last two stanzas is a more content more of a contemplation about that behavior. So I hope that that figurative interpretation makes sense as well as the literal one.
The structure of the poem The poem is free bus. You have different stanzas of different line lengths. There's no particular ordered rhyme scheme, there's just a couple instances of rhyme. There's lots of enjambment, run-on lines and short lines, and this emphasizes the haste in which the cockroaches move and the urgency of the speaker. The theme and the message of the poem, we can talk about that in terms of violent oppression, colonialism, racism.
mistreatment of others. And the tone and mood you can describe as cruel in the first two stanzas and the last two stanzas as thoughtful and contemplative. Thank you so much for watching. I hope that you enjoyed the video.
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