Student Question
What does "red scars" refer to in the poem "Africa"?
Quick answer:
In the poem "Africa," "red scars" metaphorically refer to the wounds inflicted by colonization and slavery on the continent. David Diop uses this imagery to convey Africa's enduring strength and resilience despite the historical trauma and humiliation. The "back trembling with red scars" symbolizes the suffering endured, while the poem concludes with a hopeful image of a young tree, representing new growth and freedom as Africa moves beyond its painful past.
In "Africa" David Diop apostrophizes the continent, saying:
Africa, tell me Africa
Is this your back that is unbent
This back that never breaks under the weight of humiliation
This back trembling with red scars
The question mark never comes, showing how completely rhetorical such questions are (though the last lines of the poem provide a response, if not an answer). Diop, who was born in France to a Cameroonian mother and a Senegalese father, says that he has never known Africa, but its "beautiful black blood" flows in his veins. It is no accident that the imagery he settles upon is bloody. The back trembling with red scars is obviously an image of colonization and slavery.
Diop personifies Africa, and the personified continent does say no to the whip after the red scars have been inflicted. Nonetheless, the final, ambivalent image of hope (bitter, but free) is in a plant rather than a person: the young strong tree springing up amid white flowers as Africa leaves behind the red scars of slavery.
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