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The Mystic Drum

The poem describes African culture being influenced by Western civilization. The mystic drum represents indigenous African culture. As the drum beats, people and animals dance joyfully. A strange woman watches and her presence in Africa grows over time, spreading darkness and a mechanical way of life as indigenous culture is replaced.

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456 views

The Mystic Drum

The poem describes African culture being influenced by Western civilization. The mystic drum represents indigenous African culture. As the drum beats, people and animals dance joyfully. A strange woman watches and her presence in Africa grows over time, spreading darkness and a mechanical way of life as indigenous culture is replaced.

Uploaded by

anishameera5
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The Mystic Drum- Gabriel Okara- Poem Summary

Poem Introduction:
Africa has diverse cultures and ethnicity and was exploited by the
involvement of Western civilization. The poem “The Mystic Drum” is
an expression of the above mention in the form of a poem by Gabriel
Okara, a Nigerian poet, and author. Note: “The Mystic Drum”
represents the indigenous African Culture and tradition; “She” is the
representation of a new culture i.e. western culture.

The Mystic Drum Poem Summary


The poet says that the mystic drum inside him i.e. his culture inside him is
making everyone in the land merry with its charisma. The fishes in the rivers
are dancing and people on the land are dancing along with the rhythm of the
drum. Looking at this joyful scene stands a strange woman i.e. ‘a strange
culture’ smiling and shaking her head. This gesture is maybe of acceptance or
admiration. Ignoring the stranger’s presence he says, still, his culture is lively
and is rippling the air with the quickness of its beat which even makes the dead
dance with the rhythm. Again looking at this blissful scene stands a strange
woman i.e. ‘a strange culture’ smiling and shaking her head. This gesture is
maybe of acceptance or admiration. Ignoring again, he says that the rhythm
continues to capture the moments by stealing away the things on earth, the sun,
the moon, and the river Gods with its magic essence of joy. It even made
indifference among creatures “the fishes turned men/ and men turned fishes”. It
also captured time still. Once again looking at this wonderful scene stands a
strange woman i.e. ‘a strange culture’ smiling and shaking her head. This
gesture is maybe of acceptance or admiration.
Ignorance has paid back. The rhythm and the beats inside him stopped, all the
indifference was removed and the captured natural elements were let out free.
The dead were left undisturbed in their grave and time started to change getting
out of the stillness. The stranger, who stood behind, wasn’t just standing and
having a sight at the culture, but was planting its roots into the grounds and had
grown. He means that civilization changed along with industrialization and so,
the darkness got spread although his culture and practices. In the end, the poet
packed his cultural practices and enthusiasm with him, went far away and the
rhythm remained silent forever.

The drum in African poetry, generally stands for the spiritual pulse of
traditional African life. The poet asserts that first, as the drum beat inside him,
fishes danced in the rivers and men and women danced on
the land to the rhythm of the drum. But standing behind the tree, there stood
an outsider who smiled with an air of indifference at the richness of their
culture. However, the drum still continued to beat rippling the air with
quickened tempo compelling the dead to dance and sing with their shadows.
The ancestral glory overpowers other considerations. So powerful is the mystic
drum, that it brings back even the dead alive. The rhythm of the drum is the
aching for an ideal Nigerian State of harmony. The outsider still continued to
smile at the culture from the distance. The outsider stands for Western
Imperialism that has looked down upon anything Eastern, non-Western, alien
and therefore, ‘incomprehensible for their own good’ as ‘The Other’. The
African culture is so much in tune with nature that the mystic drum invokes the
sun, the moon, the river gods and the trees began to dance. The gap finally
gets bridged between humanity and nature, the animal world and human
world, the hydrosphere and lithosphere that fishes turned men, and men
became fishes. But later as the mystic drum stopped beating, men became
men, and fishes became fishes. Life now became dry, logical and mechanical
thanks to Western Scientific Imperialism and everything found its place. Leaves
started sprouting on the woman;,she started to flourish on the land. Gradually
her roots struck the ground. Spreading a kind of parched rationalism, smoke
issued from her lips and her lips parted in smile. The term ’smoke’ is also
suggestive of the pollution caused by industrialization, and also the clouding of
morals.. Ultimately, the speaker was left in ‘belching darkness’, completely cut
off from the heart of his culture, and he packed off the mystic drum not to beat
loudly anymore. The ‘belching darkness” alludes to the futility and hollowness
of the imposed existence. The outsider, at first, only has an objective role
standing behind a tree. Eventually, she intrudes and tries to weave their
spiritual life. The ‘leaves around her waist’ are very much suggestive of Eve
who adorned the same after losing her innocence. Leaves stop growing on the
trees but only sprout on her head signifying ‘deforestation.” The refrain
reminds us again and again, that this Eve turns out to be the eve of Nigerian
damnation. Okara mentions in one of his interviews that “The Mystic Drum” is
essentially alove poem: “This was a lady I loved. And she coyly was not
responding directly, but I adored her. Her demeanor seemed to mask her true
feelings; at a distance, she seemed adoring, however, on coming closer, she
was, after all, not what she seemed.” This lady may stand as an emblem that
represents the lure of Western life; how it seemed appealing at first but later
came across as distasteful to the poet.

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