Full mark essay comparing the power of oppression in the poems 'London' and 'Checking Out Me History'. These poems can be found in the AQA GCSE English Literature poetry anthology 'Power and Conflict'.
This essay was written as revision for my GCSE in English Literature, for which I achieved a G...
Compare the ways the poets present the power of oppression in ‘London’ and one other poem.
In the poems ‘London’ and ‘Checking Out Me History’, the poets present the power of oppression as
controlling and provoking. However, in ‘London’, Blake focuses on the damage caused by the power of
oppression; in ‘Checking Out Me History’ Agard looks for a way to defeat it.
In ‘London’, Blake presents the power of oppression as controlling through vivid imagery: “mind-forged
manacles”. Here, the verb “forged” could be suggesting that the poor’s thoughts are shaped by the
government, which highlights the negative uses of power and the little freedom those without it have. By
placing the negative noun “manacles” with its connotations of imprisonment after this, the poet might be
implying that the government is using their power to secure the poor’s state of mind, which would cause
them to always be overpowered and never have the freedom to think of themselves. However, the noun
could also have been used to present how the government used their power to ensure that the poor were
tied to their social status and unable to change it, which links to the huge divide between the rich and poor
during the Industrial Revolution.
The power of oppression is also presented as controlling in ‘Checking Out Me History’ as it prevents the
speaker from discovering their true identity: “bandage up me eye”. Usually, the verb “bandage” would
have positive connotations of aid, however here the poet has used it as a metaphor to illustrate how those
with authority have blinded the speaker to his heritage, which causes the verb to become negative; it also
suggests a physical barrier, which highlights how the speaker was blocked from learning. Also, the
colloquial “me” used here highlights the speaker's accent, which could link to how the poet grew up in
Guayana and is proud of this; by using colloquialism, the poet may be implying that the power of
oppression can be defeated, as those with authority have failed to hide the speaker’s identity and he is
refusing to follow the rules set by them.
Blake presents the power of oppression as provoking in ‘London’: “every blackening church”. Here, the
negative adjective “blackening” has connotations of dirt and darkness, which implies that those with
authority are corrupted by power and could illustrate the absence of power as the church refuses to help
those in need. The angry tone of this line begins to suggest that the speaker is frustrated with how power
has been mis-used, which could link to how Blake opposed the church due to their refusal to help
children, however, the poet could also be referring to the Industrial Revolution here by creating such a
grim visual image; this implies that the power of oppression causes the citizens of London to work and
suffer. Furthermore, the repetition of the determiner “every” in the stanza and the stanza prior to it
emphasises the idea that the power of oppression causes suffering, as it creates a cyclical image along
with the unbroken rhyme scheme and highlights the continuity of the pain felt.
In ‘Checking Out Me History’, Agard also presents power as provoking and demonstrates his anger
throughout the poem. For example, in the penultimate stanza, the speaker describes how Mary Seacole, a
well-known nurse who assisted the wounded during the Crimean War, was “a yellow sunrise / to the
dying”. The use of the plosive “dying” here ends of stanza on a rather fierce and serious tone, which
indicates that the speaker wants to reinforce the importance of the woman and is irritated that he hadn't
been told about her sooner; the fact that the poet uses this plosive instead of a full stop and refrains from
using punctuation throughout the whole poem implies that the speaker is willing to break the rules he was
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