‘Portrait of a Loaf of Bread’ Mbuyiseni Oswald Mtshali (1940-)
1. Look back to the rolling fields Nature
2. waving golden-topped wheat stalks Labourers and workers
3. mowed by the reaper’s scythe, Rich vs. Poor (contrast)
4. bundled into sheaves carted to the mill Imagery/ figures of speech
5. and ground into flour. Sound devices and punctuation
6. Kneaded into mountains of dough
7. to be churned by rollers
8. and spat into pans as red hot
9. as Satan’s cauldron.
10. Brought to the café,
11. warmly wrapped in cellophane,
12. by ‘East Fresh Bread’ bakery van;
13. for the waiting cook
14. to slice and toast.
15. to butter and to marmalade
16. for the food-bedecked breakfast table.
17. Whilst the labourer
18. with fingers caked with
19. wet cement of a builder’s scaffold.
20. mauls a hunk and cold drink
21. and licks his lips and laughs
22. ‘Man can live on bread alone’.
Biographical Information
• Black consciousness poet in South Africa
Message/Meaning
• Acknowledges those oppressed in Apartheid and makes awareness of the class
inequality.
Structure
• Irregular: Disconnection between classes; society is broken up into divisions.
Imagery/Figures of Speech/Diction
• Symbols of bread, eating, and hunger to represent different classes.
• Passive to active voice gives the subject (the workers) importance and
acknowledgment. This highlights the class inequality as they are originally dismissed.
Tone/Mood
• Critical, candid, sarcastic.
1. Look back to the rolling fields Nature
2. waving golden-topped wheat stalks Labourers and workers
3. mowed by the reaper’s scythe, Rich vs. Poor (contrast)
4. bundled into sheaves carted to the mill Imagery/ figures of speech
5. and ground into flour. Sound devices and punctuation
6. Kneaded into mountains of dough
7. to be churned by rollers
8. and spat into pans as red hot
9. as Satan’s cauldron.
10. Brought to the café,
11. warmly wrapped in cellophane,
12. by ‘East Fresh Bread’ bakery van;
13. for the waiting cook
14. to slice and toast.
15. to butter and to marmalade
16. for the food-bedecked breakfast table.
17. Whilst the labourer
18. with fingers caked with
19. wet cement of a builder’s scaffold.
20. mauls a hunk and cold drink
21. and licks his lips and laughs
22. ‘Man can live on bread alone’.
Biographical Information
• Black consciousness poet in South Africa
Message/Meaning
• Acknowledges those oppressed in Apartheid and makes awareness of the class
inequality.
Structure
• Irregular: Disconnection between classes; society is broken up into divisions.
Imagery/Figures of Speech/Diction
• Symbols of bread, eating, and hunger to represent different classes.
• Passive to active voice gives the subject (the workers) importance and
acknowledgment. This highlights the class inequality as they are originally dismissed.
Tone/Mood
• Critical, candid, sarcastic.
