Checking Out Me History

Question 1

Who wrote Checking Out Me History

Answer 1

Agard

Question 2

Bandage up me…..

Answer 2

Bandage up me eye with me own history//Blind me to me own identity

• Plosive B and P sounds reflect the speaker’s anger.
• Metaphor to reflect how the British education system viewed him as broken and tried to save him

Question 3

what form is COMH

Answer 3

calypso, they were used to advocate for emancipation, potentially he is using it to campaign for the “reformation” of the education system as the truth is being held back, criticising Eurocentric views

dramatic monologue to reflect his high degree of frustration,

Question 4

which historical figure was used as an allusion to WHICH war

Answer 4

nanny de maroon

allusion to guerilla war to reflect continuous opporesion and struggle felt by those of colour

Question 5

metaphor used to show he is fighting back (connotes to slavery)

Answer 5

lick back

metaphor as licking was a slang word for whipping in that time period, could suggest that Agard is fighting back/ removing opporesion

Question 6

final line in the poem “I carving”

Answer 6

I carving out me own identity

first person pronoun used as a method of assertion
carving present tense to indicate that the process of re-educating himself has begun.
no full stop used to reflect the continuous opporesion but also how his story is not finished

Question 7

What was Agards viewpoint

Answer 7

to expose us to the “contradictory nature of the human beast” which reflects to post colonial views

Question 8

structure in COMH (3 comments)

Answer 8

The lack of punctuation, the stanzas in free verse, the irregular rhyme scheme represent the narrator’s rejection of the status quo and the formality of structured Western verse. Instead he favours the freer and spontaneous Caribbean lifestyle, expressed in the less structured verse.