AFRICAN POETRY Discuss the poet's diction in "The fence."

Answer Details

In "The Fence," Lenrie Peters chooses a spare, deliberate diction built around the central image of a boundary in order to dramatise the paralysis of indecision. The very title word, fence, is loaded: a fence is a thing that neither joins nor fully separates, and the poet exploits this middle position throughout.

Diction of division and neutrality. The recurring language of borders and edges, the man who lives "between two lands," and the phrase "no man's land" fix the persona in a barren middle ground that belongs to nobody. These are not decorative words; they are chosen for their associations with war, disputed territory and sterility, so that indecision is made to feel dangerous rather than merely uncomfortable.

Diction of light and darkness. Peters sets "day" against "night" and "light" against "darkness" to present the two opposed choices the persona refuses to make. The plain, elemental vocabulary keeps the contrast stark and moral: to sit on the fence is to reject both the good of the day and the honesty of the night.

Simplicity and finality. The diction is monosyllabic and unadorned, and the poem moves toward the blunt word die. By ending on death, the poet's word choice delivers the warning that fence-sitting is not a safe neutrality but a slow self-destruction; the man perishes precisely because he commits to nothing.

Figurative economy. Words like "seed," "grow" and "harvest" (the natural vocabulary of productivity) are used ironically, for nothing grows in the neutral strip. The lean diction therefore mirrors the theme: just as the words are stripped and bare, so the fence-sitter's life is empty of achievement.

In sum, Peters' diction, plain, dualistic and quietly menacing, enacts the poem's message that indecision and cowardly neutrality lead only to waste and death.