The core of the matter
The core of the matterThis poem was inspired on an article published by the New York Times, which reflected the injustice that blacks received from the whites during the apartheid years. From the very first line we can see the implications of racism since we are told what gender and ex-job the policeman had while we not given any information about the black discriminated woman. The ex-policeman is set on a higher category as if he was superior.
“A pregnant Black was Heart Donor; Recipient in Capetown a White Ex-policeman.”
In this quote the ex-policeman is referred to as recipient which, in a way, is a cooking term so it is describing this action as a butchery or a cooking procedure and not as a medical act.
Further on, in the second stanza, we are told that she had died earlier on in the day, from a haemorrhage of the brain but are we to believe this? It leaves the reader wondering since in most cases these death causes occur because of physical beatings so who knows? Maybe the ex-policemen colleagues could have been involved in a way. For the article the only important fact is that a white person had been saved. As if to make us wonder even more, he goes on to “How did the heart survive?” How could a dead person give a dead heart, to a man and bring it back to life.
In the fifth stanza the poet does a very interesting combination of words to produce an excellent sarcastic alliteration. “She lost her heart, but not to him to whom, she lost her heart.” Her heart had been taken out of her but not really emotionally but in a physical way. She did not lose to a person she loved but to a person she did not even know. Her “Telltale heart” had betrayed her.
Further on in the poem it can be clearly seen, as in the beginning, that still not much attention is paid to the black woman or the baby within her who was fully developed in the womb.
“All we know now is she was black, about thirty-two years old, Thirty-two weeks gone.”
This implies that considering she was black she was not worth the hassle to find out her background. The poet point out how they do not even tell the reader the exact age and the time of pregnancy. Something could have been done to save the orphan baby but as the poet claims “they did not know what happened to the unborn child”.
In the ninth stanza we conveniently find out that...
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