Half-Caste by John Agard How effective is the light-hearted ridicule :: English Literature

Half-Caste by sewer Agard How telling is the get off-hearted ridicule in this poesy?In the verse form Half-Caste by John Agard the poet uses ridicule to put hispoint across, he uses this technique very effectively and many timesand by the end of the poem you realise how doltish the fact of some hotshot creationness a Half Caste is.The poem is about a man from the West Indies and is c bothed Half Caste,which means of combine cannonball along. The poem sop ups off with a verseoff three lines totally written in Standard English. Even in this very ill-judged part we can see the way the poet is using ridicule when he saysstanding on one leg, this is inferring that because he is a fractional- club he is only standing on one leg and that only one half thewhite half of him means anything to most people. It may bet like aridiculous idea that he should stand on one leg precisely it does show howstupid the idea that soul can only stand on one leg because he isoff mixed flow.The poem then goes into a West Indian accent and it then makes anotherexample like mixing work makes him a half-caste. It then saysexplain yuself over again as it did at the start of the verse, this isrepeated many times through the poem and becomes a variety of chorus. Itis then always followed by an example, in this case comparing lightand shadow to black and white. Light and shadow is a euphemism forblack and white.The poem then goes onto a line, which really uses ridicule to get thepoint across, but whilst adding a little humour it shows an extremelyvital point that we all as individuals should think about, it saysabout English weather being half caste. We all know the joke aboutEnglish weather being bad and traditionally always cloudy and rainy.When we say that the weather is half-caste we atomic number 18 really saying it isnot as good as it should be, do we also mean this when we call aperson of mixed race a half caste. That line has double intentionsas sound as saying about English weather not being very good it alsoquestions our thoughts on people of mixed race and whether we lookdown on them.The poet then uses light hearted ridicule again when he says aboutTchaikovsky using the black and white key on a piano this is sayingthat he is not half caste but what about someone who only uses whitekeys does that make them a racist.