33 pages • 1 hour read
Derek WalcottA Far Cry from Africa
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1962A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Background
Ideological Context
Over the course of the 1800s, many European countries adopted an ideology called Imperialism, which is a policy of extending a country’s power and influence through diplomacy or military force. The practice of Imperialism entailed the colonization of almost all Indigenous territories across the globe, and a mass cultural upheaval as the Europeans forced Native peoples to adopt European culture, traditions, religion, and language. Much of the time, this practice begat unimaginable violence and trauma, as it effectively stripped people of their own identity, culture, history, spirituality, and language. The speaker of “A Far Cry from Africa” addresses these exact issues 150 years later as a testament to the lingering wounds this conquest left around the world. Imperialist policies effectively destabilized many of the territories that were conquered by arbitrarily drawing lines on a map from thousands of miles away, often by people who had never even travelled to those lands, to create new nations and borders. This practice often divided up communities, families, and ethnic groups that had thousands of years of shared culture and history, while simultaneously forcing enemies and conflicting cultures to suddenly share a nation-state.
The Mau Mau conflict in Kenya during the mid 1900s is a direct result of British meddling during the age of Imperialism. The Kikuyu were one of several cultural groups native to Kenya that formed the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA), which aimed to take back its country from this foreign invader. However, as the poem describes, the KLFA failed to gain public support, both in part due to British strategies, and also due to their own violent tactics (the “hacked” child mentioned in Line 9 might reference a true account during the uprising of a murdered four-year-old child). In total, the Mau Mau uprising caused the deaths of possibly more than 11,000 people and 1,090 executions post-conflict. It was the largest wartime use of capital punishment in the history of the British Empire.
Socio-Historical Context
“A Far Cry from Africa” was written in 1962, a time of great social and cultural upheaval around the world. In the United States, the Civil Rights Movement was in full swing, actively working to change cultural perspectives about race and to fight for equal rights for Black Americans. Simultaneously, the United States was engaged in a massively controversial war with Vietnam that garnered worldwide disapproval and resulted in numerous protests and riots in opposition to the war. In addition, the early sixties was right at the height of the Cold War, a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union, now known as Russia. This period was a time of great stress and change; it saw the confronting of longstanding issues that were a result of hundreds of years of conflict and oppression. On top of all this flux, a booming counter culture was emerging that brought BIPOC voices to the forefront of academia and pop culture, and initiated dialogue and cultural sharing that pushed for a more inclusive and diverse society.
Derek Walcott, although born in the West Indies, spent much of his time in the United States and was incredibly familiar with the budding ideologies that were enacting this cultural shift. “A Far Cry” aptly represents the feelings and attitudes of many BIPOC around the world facing the trauma of conflicting identity as a result of Imperialism and colonization. Not only does Walcott’s poem mirror anti-war sentiments at the time, but his work also demonstrates the inner turmoil that many were experiencing during this time in an attempt to break cultural and ethnic stereotypes, reconnect with their ancestry, and reclaim their own identities as individuals within this ever-changing world.
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By Derek Walcott
