"AFRICAN BEGGAR" BY RAYMOND TONG
Hello bloggers or as they would say it in Arabic, Murhuba bloggers! Today I will be unfolding the words of Raymond Tong who worked for many years in The British Council in South Africa, India and the Middle East. Raymond Tong wrote many books and poems about his journey, one of these poems being the “African Beggar”. “African Beggar” is another very deserving poem that should be apart of the Greatest Poetry of All Time and expresses the theme of the loss of love in a different way.
Raymond Tong has used an abundant amount of poetic devices to portray his theme in the poem, such as metaphor. In stanza 1 line 1, Tong alludes to a man being homeless, “Sprawled in the dust outside the Syrian Store, a target for small children, dogs and flies.” The homeless man has been left desolated by society and has lost the love of anyone around him; he is not even considered as a person by society anymore, instead he is just a “target”, an object. “He is lying alone within the shadow of a crumbling wall.”(Stanza 3. Line 1,2). The crumbling wall is a metaphor to society. Raymond portrays society as a ruin, and lacking of love, its something that has lost its purpose and is now just a danger for others. In the same way the homeless man has too, lost his purpose and lacks love from Society.
Raymond Tong has also successfully used simile to portray his theme of the loss of love. For example, “hands like claws about his begging-bowl.”(Stanza 2 Line 4) In this line, the homeless man is frowned upon like an animal that is a pest. He has claws like a bird, cripple and always taking. This simile resembles the man as being desprerate and clawing onto whatever he can manage to get his hands on. Another example is in stanza3 line 5, “Whimpering like a stricken animal” in this simile, the homeless man has now lost love for himself as he is hurt and like usual he is neglected from himself and everyone else. The use of simile also helps to create emotion; it emphasizes the beggar’s total suffering and total defeat. The reader has now created an opinion and feeling towards the fictional character and that is the power of simile.
Overall, Raymond Tong has created an emotional poem with the use of simile and metaphor. I believe he has rightfully earnt a spot in the Greatest Poetry of All Time.
The African Beggar
Sprawled in the dust outside the Syrian store, a target for small children, dogs and flies, a heap of verminous rags and matted hair, he watches us with cunning reptile eyes, his noiseless, smallpoxed face creased in a snear. Sometimes he shows his yellow stumps of teeth and whines for alms, percieving that we bear the curse of pity; a grotesque mask of death, with hands like claws about his begging bowl. But often he is lying all alone within the shadow of a crumbling wall, lost in the trackless jungle of his pain, clutching the pitiless red earth in vain and whimpering like a striken animal. Raymond Tong