Student Question
How would you analyze Agostinho Neto's poem "Western Civilization"?
Quick answer:
Agostinho Neto's poem "Western Civilization" satirically contrasts the title's suggestion of cultural advancement with harsh depictions of poverty and exploitation. The poem illustrates the grim living conditions and monotonous labor of the oppressed, highlighting the irony of the supposed "civilization" that benefits from such exploitation. The poem reflects Neto's critique of colonialism and the misery it inflicted on Angola, emphasizing the disparity between the ideals of Western civilization and the reality for the colonized.
The poem “Western Civilisation,” by Agostinho Neto, presents a grimly ironic depiction of a life lived in crushing poverty and hard work – a depiction that contrasts satirically with the poem’s title. That title suggests lofty cultural development, an achievement of high standards of culture and of social development. The conditions depicted in the poem, however, suggest quite the opposite. The title suggests that western civilization is in some way connected with, and perhaps even responsible for, the conditions the poem describes. The title suggests that the people who live “civilized” lives in the western countries (especially in Europe and North America) benefit materially from the exploitation of the kind of people the poem depicts. Such exploitation contradicts the ideal of civilization.
The poem opens by describing appalling living conditions. The opening presents a “house” that hardly even deserves to be called a shack:
Sheets of tin nailed to posts
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Sheets of tin nailed to posts
driven in the ground
make up the house.
Some rags complete the intimate
landscape. (1-5)
The tin, the posts, and the rags all suggest the flimsiness of this structure. The word “intimate” is especially ironic, since intimacy is usually associated with privacy and comfort. The word “house” is carefully postponed until the very end of the third line, so that it comes as a kind of shock to think that people actually live in such conditions and consider this kind of habitation a home. Obviously this kind of “house” can offer little comfort and little protection from the weather. The word “landscape” is a bit surprising; a word such as “abode” might have seemed more appropriate. Perhaps, however, the word “landscape” was chosen to suggest that this shack is just one of many like it and surrounding it.
The next section of the poem presents the return of the house’s inhabitant:
The sun slanting through cracks
welcomes the owner
after twelve hours of slave
labour. (6-9)
Since the sun is shining when the laborer returns, and since he has been laboring for twelve hours, perhaps he works partly in the night. Working in darkness would be symbolically appropriate to his situation. In any case, the reference to the shining sun seems ironic here; normally the bright sun is associated with life and vitality, but here the reference merely implies once more how flimsy this man’s house is.
The next several lines are especially effective poetically:
breaking rock
shifting rock
breaking rock
shifting rock
fair weather
wet weather
breaking rock
shifting rock (10-17)
These lines, with their short lengths, strong accents, heavily emphasized verbs, and highly repetitious phrasing, suggest the sheer monotony of the laborer’s life. His breaks rocks, but his own soul and spirit are surely being broken as well. The rhythms of the line mimic the strong physical labor involved.
In the final lines, the speaker once more emphasizes the irony of the man’s life, including the irony of being grateful to die of hunger. The man has grown old in a kind of literal and symbolic darkness. The word “hunger” may also be both literal and metaphorical. He has been hungry for food, but perhaps he has also been hungry for a better kind of life as well. We cannot know of the latter kind of hunger, since the man’s situation is presented objectively, from a distance, so that the poem avoids sentimentality and does not become a piece of overt political propaganda.
How can someone analyze Agostinho Neto's poem "Western Civilization"?
The poetry of Agonstinho Neto (1922-1979) was largely a product of the time and place in which he lived, not surprising for any writer, but for one who would grow up to found the independent nation of Angola out of the remains of the former Portuguese colony, his poems are an often sad ode to the misery of that land both during the period of colonialization and during the civil war that followed.
Angola during under Portuguese rule was a depressing place. Additionally, unlike the British, who at least bequethed their former colonies a functioning governmental structure including a trained civil service, the Portuguese showed no interest in developing their colonies' economies and governing institutions. When Portgugal granted Angola its independence in 1974, following a 13 year war for independence on the part of the indigenous tribes, the country was a veritable ruin. The civil war that followed independence, and which drew in the United States, Cuba, South Africa, and the Soviet bloc, exacerbated the levels of destruction and left behind thousands of unexploded land mines.
In the context of the extreme poverty and minimal prospects for hope in which Neto lived, his indictment of "western civilization," immortalized in his poem, probably could not read any other way. The following description of poverty and despair speaks for itself:
"Sheets of tin nailed to posts/driven in the ground/make up the house. Some rags complete the intimate landscape...after twelve hours of slave labour./breaking rock/shifting rock/breaking rock...Old age comes early/a mat on dark nights/is enough when he dies gratefully of hunger."
The hopelessness and despair reflected in "Western Civilization" leaves little room for interpretation. Life under the Portuguese had no place in a civilization characterized by the freedoms traditionally associated with the phrase "western civilization." What it took for an "advanced" civilization to treat the less fortunate the way the colonizers did was a little difficult for Africans to comprehend.