Analysis (Nothing’s Changed)
This poem, based on the problems in South Africa between blacks and whites, starts with a title that shows the poet’s viewpoint that nothing has changed.
The opening feels untidy, with irritating stones that ‘click’ under the writer’s feet, an example of onomatopoeia creating the hard irritating sound.
There are weeds all around, adding to the untidy picture created. Stanza two identifies the place as ‘District Six’ which is identifiable not by a sign ‘board’ but by instinct ‘my feet know and my hands …. ’ Indeed all his body seems to know.
The stanza ends with a sense of great anger ‘and the hot, white, inwards turning anger of my eyes’ which shows that the writer feels great anger that this location is labelled this way and is in this condition.
The third stanza takes us to a ‘brash’ restaurant, full of ‘up market, haute cuisine’ with a ‘guard at the gatepost’. It is most identifiable as a ‘whites only inn’ so no black people are allowed in here. It is not meant to be seen positively by the reader as the poet calls it ‘brash’, it is personified as something almost hiding or lurking in the grass and weeds ‘it squats’.
The fact that there has to be a guard at the gatepost shows that something is wrong here, that those inside need protection from a guard.
The fourth, brief stanza highlights the racism inherent in South Africa the most clearly with ‘we know where we belong’ as no sign says it, but they are clearly told where there place is in society.
The writer looks in through the window in stanza five, to see what there is in the restaurant, although there is the sense of knowing what will be there: ‘crushed ice white glass’ and each table has a table cloth on it and a ‘single rose’.
The contrast with the ‘working man’s café’ down the road is clear in stanza six. You can take your food with you, there are plastic tables and no serviettes as people wipe their fingers on their jeans, ‘spit a little on the floor’ and this is all second nature to them ‘it’s in the bone’. This is a complete contrast with the restaurant as this is much more unpleasant and uncivilised.
The final stanza sees the poet moving away from the scene, reverting to being a ‘boy again’ and there is a sense of smallness about him with ‘a small mean O of small, mean mouth’ as if the whole experience has left him feeling inadequate and small.
He wants to throw a stone or ‘a bomb’ at the glass, such is his anger at the whole scene.
The anger that nothing has changed.
You can find analysis of all the Edexcel Time and Place Poetry Anthology Poems here.
