examine many faces mentioned in the poem once upon a time
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This poem ‘Once upon a time’ was written by a Nigerian poet known as Gabriel Okara. Gabriel Okara was born in 1921 in Nigeria. The poet was highly self sophisticated and did not get influenced by other poets around at the time. Gabriel’s poems would hold very great sensitivity, perceptive judgements and tremendous energy. Gabriel Okara was brilliant at changing the moods of people with his poems.
‘ONCE UPON A TIME’ is a poem consisting of seven stanzas each containing between four and eight lines. The title of this poem ‘Once upon a time’ straight away makes you feel as if you are going back in time, it also makes you feel as if what happened was a fairy tale and it will never happen again. I think that the poet has used this title to make the reader feel as though what he will read i.e. what he experienced will never happen again and when a person reads the title it will make him feel as if he is about to read fairy tale.
In stanza one Gabriel Okara writes ‘Once upon a time, son’ , so when he writes son it shows that he is talking to his son or someone who is younger than him likely to be in his childhood days. He then writes ‘they used to laugh with their hearts, and laugh with their eyes’, by saying ‘used to’ shows that it happened in the past and does not happen now and he says that before people would laugh with their hearts and would really laugh out of happiness but now ‘they only laugh with their teeth, while their ice-block-cold eyes, search behind my shadow’. When the poet says now they only laugh with their teeth he means that people now when they do laugh they only laugh for the sake of laughing and not out of real happiness, and then he goes on to say ‘while their ice-block-cold eyes search behind my shadow’ , by using a metaphor the writer says that the person who is laughing laugh with his/her eyes as cold and as solid as ice and there is no happiness what so ever inside the persons eyes while they search behind his shadow as in they look right past him without paying any attention to him whatsoever. Stanza one summed up is talking about when he was young when people would laugh with their hearts and how people have changed to laugh without happiness and to ‘fake laugh’ while their cold eyes would be dead with grief.
In stanza two Gabriel says ‘they used to shake hands with their hearts; but now that’s gone’ when he says this he means that in the past people would shake hands and be happy i.e. they would actually shake hands with pleasure ‘but now that’s gone’ shows that this is no more. He means that people would have shook hands with happiness before but now they shake hands without any joy and be in boredom as he goes on to say ‘now they shake hands without hearts;’. The next line in the same stanza says ‘While their left hand search my empty pocket’ this shows that the writer is indicating that the person who he is meeting is searching his pockets while they are empty, which give you an idea that the poet would not have any valuables in his pocket. To summarise stanza three would be that people in the early nineteenth century, would meet and greet each other with their full hearts, out of utter happiness and with a good intention, where as nowadays it has turned completely opposite and people don’t just shake hands without heart, they search in your pockets while they are doing so.
Stanza three starts with ”feel at home’! ‘Come again’: they say,’ By this we can understand that the poet is reminding us of how we invite people to our homes and for tea then he later says ‘and when I come again and feel at home, once, twice, there will be no thrice’ by saying this the poet means that when the invited person does feel at home once then it is okay; when he does this a second time then it is also accepted; but when he tries the third time…well there will be no third time as in the person inviting will not allow you to come as he goes on to say ‘for then I find the doors shut on me’. In the third stanza the poet is saying that when people invite each other for tea, for dinner or just to his/her house then they will allow them to come a couple of times with pleasure but after while they will get fed up and slam the doors shut on you; in other words not allow you to come into their house.