Papa T Fred D'Aguiar Flashcards
What is Papa-T about?
-The poet’s grandfather recited “The Charge of the Light Brigade” by Alfred Lord Tennyson, a poem he learned as a seafarer.
-The poet visualizes the Crimean War and merges those images with his grandfather’s stories of the Guyanese jungle and his adventures, highlighting the contrast between two histories and cultures.
-The memory of his grandfather reciting the poem in a strong accent significantly influenced the poet, who is now a writer.
-D’aguiar was sent to live with his grandparents, “papa-t” and “mama dot,” in Guyana at age 2 due to political unrest.
-At 12, he moved to London to live with his mother, where he was exposed to Caribbean and English literature in secondary school.
-Ater school, he trained to be a nurse and later pursued writing courses, eventually teaching at UCLA and Virginia Tech.
What are the key themes?
- Past and present
- Identity.
- Control of history.
- Conflict of his identity as a British-Guyanese man living in London.
- Family conflict - the grandfather is presented as quite aggressive to D’aguiar when he doesn’t listen to the poems he is reciting.
‘Grandad recited the Tennyson learned at sea’
-This signals that the poem is about education, culture and family relationships.
-Tennyson is one of the most famous British poets.
-Shows how the grandfather was in the Navy and worked very hard to build up a British identity.
‘I saw companies of redcoats tin-soldiering it’
-Hyphenated verb ‘tin-soldering’ hints at the idea that the battle feels like a far away game rather than a real battle - also a compound verb emphasises innocence of speaker compared the brutal stories of war he is hearing from his father.
‘Redcoats’
Symbols of British imperialism and power- they are the army
‘He’d cut short to shout, If yu all don’t pay me mind / I goin ge yu a good lickin’
-Direct + italics give it an authentic voice (accent) ‘yu’
-Guyanese perspective - juxtaposition between grandfather + also shows the sensitive side of the grandfather who might think he is not being taken seriously reciting
-Shows how D’Aguiar may not have a sense of belonging as his grandpa is trying very hard to be British
-English poet like Tennyson with an accent.
-Perhaps it reminds the grandfather of times where he has felt excluded from British culture.
