Critically analyse the poem ‘Naked Truths”
Critically analyse the poem ‘Naked Truths”. The title “Naked Truths” is a pointer; we are supposed to pause and think the suggestion it carries. In the present case, the title refers to happenings in the distant past as well as those the poet witnessed in his own lifetime.
The past and the
present are imagined as coexisting here in the form of what the poet calls
truths. Truths are larger than happenings; they present for the advantage of
the reader the life of a dalit. An important thing in this poem is the presence
of deities, god-like figures guarding interests of the community. To the naked
eye they are invisible, but they remain present to inspire and help the
community when need arises. In the first stanza, there is a talk of “deities”
whom poet has requested to be with him and “go with me.”
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Critically analyse the poem ‘Naked Truths”
More than the larger society of a whole region, the
poet-persona belongs to a clan bound by the principle of language, culture and
folklore. In the same breath, the poet associates himself with a bird that
flies “away leaving the nest.” The bird helps the poet escape from the clutches
of a cruel society—it did not provide to him strength and sustenance. That is
why the poet wishes to fly away from his “nest.” One may call it a good
beginning of the poem that aims to expose a number of bitter truths about the
man-made agency called society. At this juncture, let us raise the question:
Why does the poet have a sudden urge to leave the nest? My own feeling is that
the rest of the poem, the thirty four line long verse, is an answer to this
question.
It is communicated to us that the society depicted here is no
place for a dalit, that it is impossible to belong to it in any way. This is
the truth to which the poet has added the word “bitter.” Here, the poem’s
strong title gets extra emphasis from “the stillbirth of my firstborn.” Few
shocks are stronger for a parent than the birth of a dead child. Also, the
effect 9 Sunny Kavikkad’s Two Poems: “Naked Truths” and “With Love” is further
heightened here by “firstborn.” Critically analyse the poem ‘Naked Truths”.
his event in life is interpreted as the wrath of the deities.
What does the poet convey by saying that his clan’s deities are angry with him?
The question is kept open and the poet turns to the night and “the flame
flickering in the wind.” Also mark “creeps” which contains clear hints of slow
death. There is a feeling here that nothing is right with the world in which
the poet is forced to live. This is a typical dalit predicament – his very
existence is a denial of life since he has no right to extend his family to the
next generation. We see the suggestion in the lines that deities, the night,
and the wind are part of a plan under which the poet will suffer punishment of
accepting such a “truth.” Lest the dead child should symbolize a fate in which
deities and nature have colluded, the quoted lines reflect on the conditions in
which dalits have lived since time immemorial. Lack of hygiene in Indian
villages is cause of innumerable deaths of women and children. This is
particularly true of dalit women and children.
Critically analyse the poem ‘Naked Truths”
Critically analyse the poem ‘Naked Truths”. The rebel poet
has decided here to state this aspect tellingly so that stark facts of the poor
and deprived are brought to light. In any case, “truths” are all social in the
case of dalit experience that is a product of man-made social circumstance. In
the third and fourth stanzas, two phrases catch attention – “lore of tears/
swelling in my eyes” and “never-ending debts/ lie strewn over life’s lanes.”
Think particularly of “lore.” It denotes the string of stories that have
evolved their own pattern in the spread of time. The dalit community thrives on
stories of devastation and misery which present to it a tradition of suffering.
Helplessness is crux of the dalit experience as men and women of this large
group can ever feel the rush of tears in their eyes. The length of time in
“lore” takes us to the history that has been kept away from clear articulation
– so far as dalits are concerned, history is only allowed to coexist with
sufferings they undergo in the present.
Critically analyse the poem ‘Naked Truths”
If the past were not to be “lore” but a written account of happenings in a sequence, dalits would decipher codes of rationale embedded in it. This perception connects the description with the second phrase “never-ending debts/ lie strewn over life’s lanes.” Factual words in the second phrase are “debts” and “life’s lanes.” The economic idea behind “debts” is a comment on the system that enables the rich to keep a tight leash on the dalit community. Equally meaningfully, “life’s lanes” presents the arrangement of relations as a complex mechanism of controlling dalit vitality.
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