Interview
penguin on the beach- Ruth Miller
- Course
- English Home Language
- Institution
- 12
analysis of IEB poem penguin on the beach
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Penguin on the beachPENGUIN ON THE BEACH – RUTH MILLER
Biographical information
She was born in the Cape, spent most her time in JH.
She loved teaching, she loved English.
Wrote a couple of a short poem, stories and plays.
Poems are bold and an undercurrent of sadness is seen throughout them – evoking a
“note of tragedy”
Meaning/message
- Portrays the impact on a penguin of being caught in an oil-slick with its dreadful
threat of extinction of the whole colonies of sea-life.
- Disgust to human indifference.
- She criticizes human’s rampant disregard for their consequences
The constant use of the caesura – unnatural sentence structure which emphasises the
complete displacement of the penguin.
Tone:
At beginning: sadness/sympathy/indifferent
At the end: hostile/angry/cynical.
, Penguin on the beach
Stranger in his own element,
Sea-casualty, the castaway manikin
Waddles in his tailored coat-tails. Oil
Has spread a deep commercial stain
Over his downy shirt front. Sleazy, grey,
It clogs the sleekness. Far too well
He must recall the past, to be so cautious:
Watch him step into the waves. He shudders
Under the froth; slides, slips, on the wet sand,
Escaping to dryness, dearth, in a white cascade,
An involuntary shouldering off of gleam.
Hands push him back into the sea. He stands
In pained and silent expostulation.
Once he knew a sunlit, leaping smoothness,
But close with his head’s small knoll, and dark,
He retains the image: Oil on sea,
Green slicks, black lassoos of sludge
Sleeving the breakers in a stain-spread scarf.
He shudders now from the clean flinching wave,
Turns and plods back up the yellow sand,
Ineffably wary, triumphantly sad.
He is immensely wise: he trusts nobody. His senses
Are clogged with experience. He eats
Fish from the Saviour’s hands, and it tastes black.
Blue – penguin after the oil
Yellow – the oil
Green – memories from before the spill
Purple – address to reader
Orange – human indifference
Pink – the image remains
Title:
setting/context
sets up the expectation of a natural context- a penguin on the beach (cute/sweet/happy)
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