Poem 1.

 NIGHTFALL IN SOWETO by Oswald Mbuyiseni

A dreaded disease                                     

Seeping through the pores                     

Of a healthy body

And ravaging it beyond repair                     5

A murderer’s hand,

Lurking in the shadows,

Clasping the dagger,

Strikes down the helpless victim.

I am the victim                                               10

I am slaughtered

Every night in the streets.

I am cornered by the fear

Gnawing at my timid heart;

In my helplessness I languish                       15

Man has ceased to be man

Man has become beast

Man has become prey.

I am the prey;

I am the quarry to be run down                                  20

By the marauding beast

Let loose by cruel nightfall

From his cage of death .

Where is my refuge?
Where am I safe?                                                         25

Not in my matchbox house

Where I barricade myself against nightfall  .

I tremble at his crunching footsteps,

I quake at his deafening knock at the door              

“Open up!” he barks like a rabid dog                         30

Thirsty for my blood .

Nightfall! Nightfall!

You are my mortal enemy.

But why were you ever created?

Why can’t it be daytime?

Daytime forever more ?                                             36

1. Glossary

Nightfall :( noun) the close of the day; the coming of night .

Dreaded :( adjective) Causing fear or terror

Lurking :( present participle deriving from the verb to lurk, which means to move or wait
quietly as if intending to do something wrong and not wanting to be seen. Clasping :
( present participle of clasp)(transitive) it is derived from to “clap” which means to take
and /or hold firmly aside your hands or arms.

Dagger :( noun) (weapon) A stabbing weapon, similar to a sword but with a short,
double-edged blade .

Gnawing :( present participle of gnaw) means to cause pain or bite something

Languish :( intransitive verb) (intransitive) to experience long suffering

Quarry :( noun) the person or animal that one is hunting or chasing.

Crunching: is derived from the verb to crunch which means to make a noise like the
sound of something being crushed.

Quake :( noun) A trembling or shaking.

Deafening :( adjective) loud enough to cause temporary or permanent hearing loss

1. Analysis of the poem

The speaker protests against the treatment of the South African Blacks in Soweto at
nightfall. Nightfall in Soweto symbolizes terror. It is the beginning of the insecurity, fear
and violence that go on all night long. This poem has as the background the Apartheid
system in South Africa. It has as a setting Soweto. It depicts the agony and dangers the
people of Soweto face in the night. It also portrays the inhuman treatments the Black
people in South Africa are subjected to in the hand of the white police who are regarded
as the agent of pain, oppression, vengeance, killings and all forms of evils.

The poem opens with a comparison. In actual fact, the coming of the night fall is
compared with that of the dreaded disease affecting body in a harmful way and
damaging it beyond repair. As for the second stanza, the speaker regrets strongly the
morally bad crimes committed in the night. Obviously, the white police hide in the cover
of darkness with different dangerous weapons to kill innocent defenseless people. Night
is likened to a damaging disease in the way that the white policeman catches some
helpless, frustrated Blacks.

In the third stanza, the speaker presents himself as a victim who is cruelly killed every
night in the streets. So the speaker stands for every black person who is mercilessly
killed in every street of Soweto. That is why the word “streets” is in the plural.

All in all, “I and the victim” (line 10) symbolizes the sufferings of the totality of the Blacks
in Soweto and other areas where the blacks are heavily dominated by the whites. The
fourth stanza describes the inhumanities and atrocities done on man every night. That is
why the speaker denounces the fact that man has stopped to be man, and that he has
become beast a prey.

Man has ceased to be man

Man has become beast

Man has become prey (Lines 16, 17, 18)

The above-mentioned lines indicate that man has stopped to be man because he is
hunted down by the agents of the apartheid system that are designed by beast. These
agents are the policemen who are on their nights round to the blacks so as to give a
good hiding to them. That is why the blacks are now afraid and frightened. The black
man has become unmanly. He has ceased being humane, accommodating and friend.
He has sadly changed into the victim or the prey of the cruel white men.

The fifth stanza goes on repeating the image of the savage beast and its prey or quarry.
The speaker shows how the quarry is constantly treated cruelly in the night. The
oppressive and inhuman machinery and agents of the apartheid system are at work at
night to terrorize the black people. The apartheid system and its evil agents are the
marauding beasts hunting black South Africans as quarries.

 In the sixth stanza, the victim asks several rhetorical questions to show how dejected he
is. That is why he cries out in pain. The speaker also tells the reader about the worrying
experiences he undergoes during nightfall. He says that the trembles on hearing the
footsteps of the police and the deafening knock at the door.

All in all for the black in South Africa during the Apartheid system during the apartheid
system, nights stand for troubles for the innocent. The black then wonder why night has
been created at all if it should be full of risks and danger for them. It is with this lament
on night that the poem ends.

2. Themes in the poem

The poem focuses on the theme of destruction of human lives. It is also concerned with
the looting of mother earth.

 "I am the quarry to be run down

By the marauding beast

Let loose by cruel nightfall

From his cage of death . (Lines 20-23)" This shows the destruction that the colonizers
brought to the blacks’ life.

Fear and insecurity are found in the following passages;

"I am cornered by the fear

 Gnawing at my timid heart;

 In my helplessness I languish "(line 13-15) the speaker shows how he fears when it is
nightfall, he is helpless and terrified because of the situation he is undergoing. Lines 24
up to 29 are the illustrations of insecurity and fear where the speaker shows how he is
living under pressure and he is not feeling at ease even when he is inside his house. All
his life is unsecured and all what he feels is fear "Where is my refuge?

 Where am I safe?

Not in my matchbox house

 Where I barricade myself against nightfall .

 I tremble at his crunching footsteps;

 I quake at his deafening knock at the door ".The speaker doesn’t have a refuge. He has
nobody to help him. All his life is characterized by fear and insecurity.

 All in all, the poem is a very strong lamentation or deep sorrow about the destruction
and the looting.

The mood of the poem is very sad and its tone is unpleasant.

3. Literary devices
The poet makes use of several literary devices to achieve his artistic creation. It is a
matter of irony, apostrophe, simile, rhetorical questions, repetitions and personification.

 As far as irony is concerned, it is ironic that night which is regarded as a time to rest,
relax and renew one’s energy happens to be the most dreaded time in Soweto. Night,
which is normally quiet and calm, turns out to be ironically cruel and unsafe as it is the
case in the poem being studied.

Apostrophe is found in the last stanza. In the following lines in which the speaker
exclaims,

                        Night fall! Night fall!

                        You are my enemy

The rhetorical question is found in the following lines:

                        Where is my refuge?

                        Where am I safe?

                        Why were you ever created?

Simile is present in stanza 1 lines 1 and 2 and in stanza 6 in line 2. They are:

                        Night fall comes like a dreaded disease

                        He barks like a a rabid dog

There is also repetition of “man” and “night fall”. There is parallelism of “I am” and where.
And finally, there is personification of night fall. Night fall is personified as a nasty
creature who comes like a dreaded disease. So, nightfall is given the quality of human
being.