SECTION C: AFRICAN POETRY Examine the use of contrast in Okara's "Piano and Drums'

Answer Details

Gabriel Okara's Piano and Drums is built almost entirely upon contrast. The poem sets two worlds of sound against each other, the drums of Africa and the piano of the West, in order to dramatise the speaker's divided cultural identity. Examining this use of contrast reveals both the poem's structure and its central theme.

Contrast of the two instruments. The drums stand for African tradition. Their beating is described as urgent, primal and immediate, awakening in the speaker a sense of his 'mother' and the raw, instinctive life of the past, 'simple paths with no innovations.' The piano, by contrast, represents Western civilisation. Its notes are 'complex,' 'coaxing,' and 'tear-furrowed,' full of 'concerto' and 'crescendo,' suggesting sophistication but also confusion and remoteness.

Contrast of feeling and response. The drums stir a direct, bodily response; the speaker feels his 'blood ringing' and is drawn into a natural, hunting world of 'leopard' and 'panther.' The piano produces a wandering, uncertain reaction, 'lost in the labyrinth' of its intricacy, leaving him bewildered rather than at home.

Contrast of imagery and diction. Okara reinforces the opposition through word choice. The drum passages use concrete, earthy, natural images, while the piano passages use abstract, technical, musical vocabulary. Even the rhythm of the lines shifts, mirroring the simplicity of the one world and the complexity of the other.

The unresolved contrast. The final stanza brings the two together as the speaker stands 'confused' where the 'drums and the concerto' meet. The contrast is not resolved; instead it captures the dilemma of the modern African caught between an ancestral heritage and an imposed Western culture.

In conclusion, contrast is the organising principle of Piano and Drums. Through opposed sounds, feelings, images and rhythms, Okara conveys the tension of cultural duality and the speaker's inability to belong wholly to either world.