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Summary The Zulu girl by Roy Campbell
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The following notes help provide a deeper understanding of Grade 12 poetry and helps with exam prep.
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- The Zulu girl -Stanza 1
Traditionally, Zulu women are responsible for ploughing the soil and
this is reflected in the girls’ activity in this poem.
The Zulu girl finds herself in a harsh and unforgiving
environment. Instead of using the standard phrase ’red hot’ to
describe how hot it is, the speaker reverses the words and
describes the Earth as “the hot red acres”. This might suggest
the redness of the soil or how red the Earth looks because of
the harsh sun beating down on it and making it look as if it
were “smoulder(ing)” (Line 1)
The Earth is parched and the labourers are ‘sweating’ (Line 2)
because of the heat and their physical exhaustion. By
describing the labourers as a “gang”(Line 2) they are stripped
of their individuality. The tedious/mundane routine of their
work/labour is implied both by the word “piles” (Line 2) and the
girl’s act of fling(ing) (Line 3) her hoe to the ground, in an
attitude of impatience and exasperation. There is also a sense
of defiance in her action: She rejects the work to tend to her
child whom she has been carrying on her back. The anguish of
the child, and the unpleasant conditions he is exposed to in the
field is reinforced by the word “tormented”(Line 4).
(Sympathetic feel because flies are torturing the child.)
The atmosphere in the first stanza is one of discomfort.
Stanza 2
The girl separates herself from the “gang” and takes her to “ring of
shadow pooled/By thorn tress”(Line 5-6)
She is looking for some relief from the intolerable heat but the shade
that is offered by the thorn tree – a typically African tree known for
its hardness – is meagre. Even so, the pool of shade provides some
respite in contrast to the heat described in Stanza 1. Her tenderness
is suggested by gentle caresses of her hand through his hair. She is
grooming her son, looking for ticks in his hair and when she finds
them, she squeezes them between her fingernails with ‘sharp
electric clicks’ (Line 8)
She is compared to hunter who ‘prowl(s)’ her son’s head in search of
prey. This creates the impression that the girl is determined to care
for her son but it also indicates that she has a tough streak, having
to endure great hardship in her life.
The regularity of her routine is suggested by the phrase
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