Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali: 'Nightfall In Soweto'

OSWALD MBUYISENI MTSHALI: ‘NIGHTFALL IN SOWETO’

                                   Nightfall comes like

                                                A dreaded disease

                                                Seeping through the pores

                                                Of a healthy body

                                    5          And ravaging it beyond repair.

                                               

                                                A murderer’s hand

                                                Lurking in the shadows,

                                                clasping the dagger.

                                                Strike down the helpless victim.

                                    10       I am the victim.

                                                I am slaughtered

                                                every night in the streets.

                                                I am cornered by the fear

                                                gnawing at my timid heart;

                                                In my helplessness I languish.

                                                Man has ceased to be man

                                                Man has become beast

                                                Man has become prey.

                                                I am the prey;

                                    20       I am the quarry to be run down

                                                by the marauding beast

                                                let loose by cruel nightfall

                                                from his cage of death.

                                                Where is my refuge?

                                    25       Where am I safe?

                                                Not in my matchbox house

                                                where I barricade myself against nightfall.

                                                I tremble at his crunching footsteps.

                                                I quake at his deafening knock at the door.

                                    38       ‘Open up’ he barks like a rabid dog’

                                                thirsty for my blood.

                                                Nightfall! Nightfall!

                                                You are my mortal enemy.

                                                But why are you ever created?

                                    35       Why can’t it be daytime?

                                                Daytime forever more?

POET’S BACKGROUND

Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali was born on January 17, 1940 in Vryheid, Natal, South Africa. He was educated at Inkamana High School, Natal: but his ambition for University education was made to die because of the moribund apartheid policy in South Africa robbed him of his admission into the University of Witwatersrand. He later got a job as a messenger in Johannesburg in 1965, where he has since settled to raise a family. The publication of his first volume of poems, Sounds of a Cowhide Drum, in 1971 brought him to recognition as a poet of significance. Mtshali of himself:

 

I draw my theme from my life as I live and experience it. I write in the free verse form because it allows me more freedom in expression without the restriction of meter and rhyme. I depict the life of humanity as a whole as reflected in my environment.   

BACKGROUND TO THE POEM

This poem centers on the horrible experience of black South Africans who live in Soweto. Soweto is coined from South-West Town, and it is a town in the suburb of Johannesburg. As at the time the poem was written, Soweto was a name synonymous with oppression, deprivation, ghetto, violence, and terrorism. 

 

The black community in Soweto was actively engaged in the domestic, economic and social services that kept the white community in Johannesburg going; yet a black South African lived in perpetual agony and fear, especially at night when he ought to have  a full rest after the day’s labor in the service of the white community in this poem, Mtshali, who is also the poetic persona, narrates the horrible acts that are perpetrated under the cover of night and the trauma that the black South African had to go through before daybreak. For this reason, the poet abhors nightfall and prefers it were daytime twenty-four hours.

THEME

The identifiable themes in this poem include those of (a) terrorization (b) helplessness and (c) horrors that accompany nightfall. These themes are pathetically articulated by the poet in order to expose the horrors of physical and mental tortures that the black South African was subjected to at the fall of night. He associates night with dreaded. Disease, cruelty, and death. The poet, who is a representative of the black South Africans, sees himself as the prey and victim of all the cruelties perpetrated by night marauders.

FORM AND STRUCTURE

The poem which has 36 lines is divided into eight stanzas. It has no rhyme but some rhythm. The rhythmic movement is necessitated by effective use of punctuation marks, and the use of structural repetition as a device of parallelism. The lines are very short and the diction is understandably simple.

 

The first stanza is run-on, the second and forth stanzas are also run-on. This is perhaps to show how ‘the poet almost lost his emotions run away with him. Quite appropriately, the poet shows his utter disgust for his ‘mortal enemy’ – night – in the last three lines of the poem which are rhetorical questions.

LANGUAGE AND TECHNIQUE

The language of this poem is simple but emotional. The lexical choice as well as the use of imagery assists a great deal in the cinematic portrayal of the poet’s experience as a victim of nightfall. Words such as ravaging, marauding, dagger, slaughter, beast, and rabid dog are suggestive of violence and destruction.

 

Among the figure of speech used are:

                                                Simile:                       line 1, 2, and 32

                                                Metaphor:               line 11, 16, 17, 18 23, and 26

                                                Alliteration:                        line 2 and 17

                                                Personification:     line 13 and 22

                                                Apostrophe:                       line 32, 33, and 34

                                                Rhetorical question:        line 24, 25, 34, 35, and 36

                                                Synecdoche:                       line 6 and 14

Repetition:              ‘I am’ is repeated after its first occurrence in line 10. Four other times 11, 13, 19, and 20.

Structural repetition: line 10 and 19

                                                I am the victim

                                                I am the prey

                                                And also 17 and 18

                                                Man has become beast

                                                Man has become prey

Onomatopoeia:                 line 28

In the use of imagery, the poet uses the image of an endemic disease which regularly attacks and kills its patients in the first stanza. Image of death used in the rest of the poem, vividly portrayed in the slaughtering hand of the murderer, and the prey being hunted by the marauding beast let loose from his cage of death. This is also reinforced by the image of a rabid dog thirsty for human blood.

 

Indeed, the language of the poem is simple, and the diction clearly portrays an atmosphere of insecurity and terrorism which Mtshali poetically presents. The implied ironies are that night brings restlessness instead of rest, and that the state agent, who is supposed to maintain security of life and property, are actually ravaging Soweto.

REVISION QUESTIONS

1.     What are the implied ironies in this poem?   

2.      Discuss the imageries used in the poem.

3.     Comment on the first stanza of this poem in relation to the rest of the poem.

4.     Identify the use of any five figures of speech in the poem.

5.     What is the effect of the series of rhetorical questions that ends the poem?

By Eguriase S. M Okaka