what kind of person is the speaker of Once Upon a Time
Answers
The poem "Once Upon a Time" by Nigeria poet Gabriel Okara is written from the perspective of a parent addressing his young son. The title and opening line, "Once upon a time," frame the poem as a kind of bedtime story or fairy tale, as the father reminisces about a (now lost) time of openness, kindness, and honesty. The group that the father describes and addresses as "they" is never explicitly defined, but it's easy to infer that "they" represent all of adult society. These are the people who have forgotten the innocence and joy of youth and now "only laugh with their teeth" and have "ice-block-cold eyes." The portrait of "them" that the speaker paints is of a society of cold, greedy, and disingenuous people who have lost all of their childhood wonder.
Interestingly, it is clear from stanza four that the parental speaker has learned to behave in exactly the same way as these people he groups together as "they," in order to fit in. But, presumably unlike the rest of adult society, the speaker longs to return to the bigheartedness of his youth: the same bigheartedness that he sees in his son.
Explanation:
the the poet is a kind of person who learn how to hide feeling