Portrait of a Loaf of Bread - Mtshali
·
Portrait: representation
Themes: segregation (Apartheid – non-white vs white) and unity (eating the same bread)
·
· Diction: verbs – calming, friendly, non-
1 Look back to the rolling field threatening, hypnotic atmosphere created
· Setting: agricultural, hills
· Waving: wind is blowing through the stalks, a
2 Waving golden-topped wheat stalks
friendly gesture
· Diction: verbs – negative, harsh, aggressive,
3 Mowed by the reaper’s scythe, violent
Reiterates the aggression/violence/selfishness
Highlights negative aspect of consumerism –
4 Bundled into sheaves humans take from nature and rework it for our
own consumption
5 Carted to the mill · Reaper’s scythe: imagery of
· the grim reaper – violent, attacking, death
· Reaper: (1) a person who cuts (2) the grim reaper
· Personification: emphasises the violent nature
of the action – almost seems unhuman
· Mowed: connotations of cutting/harsh noise –
6 And ground into flour destroy in large quantities
· Bundled: grouped together
· Carted: connotations of being carelessly
thrown/not delicate
7 Kneaded into mountains of dough · Diction: aggressive, violent
· Structure: consumerism vs a wide open field –
8 To be churned by rollers the wheat is taken from the open field to the
9 And spat into pans as red hot confined factory
· Spat: negative connotations – disgust, violence
· Simile: negative comparison of pans with Satan’s
cauldron
10 As Satan’s cauldron Red hot: anger, pain, aggression
Satan: hell, evil, pain
Cauldron: associated with evil, witchcraft, spells,
negative intentions
·
11 Brought to the café,
· Calm, comforting, happy atmosphere is created
12 Warmly wrapped in cellophane, · Diction – ‘wrapped’: shows care (positive
connotations)
13 By “East Fresh Bread” bakery van;
14 For the waiting cook · Cook: likely a non-white person – is not permitted
to eat the food, even though he must prepare it
15 To slice and toast
· Indicates the division between the white/non-
16 To butter and to marmalade white populations
· Food-bedecked: laden with food – indicates
privilege
17 For the food-bedecked breakfast table.
· The people about to eat this food are obviously
rich + have no experience of poverty
·
18 Whilst the labourer · Labourer: likely a non-white person
19 With fingers caked with · Wet cement: he has already been working –
20 Wet cement of a builder’s scaffold trying his best to earn a wage
· Diction – ‘mauls’: aggressive, attack, starving
· Mauls: shows how he eats with gusto – he is not
21 Mauls a hunk and a cold drink restricted to table manners (like the family inside)
· The labourer probably appreciates the food more
than the family did
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