Selected Poetry of Okot p'Bitek Literary Elements

Selected Poetry of Okot p'Bitek Literary Elements

Speaker or Narrator, and Point of View

The action described in the poem "Cattle Egret" is told from the perspective of a first-person subjective point of view.

Form and Meter

Most poems are written in free verse.

Metaphors and Similes

The flag is used in the poem "From song of Ocol" as a metaphor for a person's love for their country.

Alliteration and Assonance

We find an alliteration in the poem "The horn of my love" in the line "The shortage of cattle has ruined my man!"

Irony

No ironic elements can be found in any of the poems.

Genre

The poem "Cattle Egret" is a meditative one.

Setting

Most poems are meditative ones and because of this it is hard to determine a setting in which the action takes place.

Tone

The tone used in "From song of Ocol" is an accusatory one.

Protagonist and Antagonist

In the poem "My husband's tongue is bitter" the protagonist is the woman and the antagonist is her abusing husband.

Major Conflict

The major conflict in the poem "The horn of my love' is between idealism and the harsh reality a person has to face every day.

Climax

The poem "From song of Ocol" reaches its climax when the narrator reveals that all the promises the politicians have made were empty and had no real value for the working people.

Foreshadowing

The title of the poem "My husband's tongue is bitter" foreshadows the abuse described the man in the poem will inflict on his wife.

Understatement

In the beginning of the poem "The horn of my love", the narrator claimed that a person can survive if they only have love. This is proven to be an understatement because the narrator then goes to list all the necessary things a person needs to have in order to survive and live a happy and meaningful life.

Allusions

The main allusion in the poem "Cattle Egret" is the idea that children are the future and a person has no other purpose in life than to procreate and bring to life as many children as possible.

Metonymy and Synecdoche

The horn is used in the poem "The horn of my love" as a general term to make reference to a person's desire to make their affection for someone else public.

Personification

We have a personification in the line "The moon kisses" in the poem "Cattle Egret".

Hyperbole

We have a hyperbole in the poem "My husband's tongue is bitter" in the lines "My husband pours scorn/ On Black People".

Onomatopoeia

We have an onomatopoeia in the line "And men and women wept with joy" in the poem "From song of Ocol".

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