A Theme Of Overcoming Challenges In “Where There’s A Wall” By Joy Kogawa
“Where there’s a wall” by Joy Kogawa can be analyzed through a post-colonial lens using various forms of poetic criticism. The poem focuses on overcoming challenges in your life through the use of structure, theme, tone, poetic devices, and imagery. The author’s message in this poem is to choose a more peaceful and faithful path when overcoming challenges.
A wall is used as a symbolic figure to represent life’s struggles. The poem attempts to show two paths, each with different methods to get over the wall. There are violent ways to tackle your problems, “helicopters, rockets, bombs” which is considered the wrong direction in life. The author also presents a more religious and peaceful method, “I am standing staring at the top/lost in the clouds/I hear every sound you make/but cannot see you” which refers to having faith that God will guide you through your troubles. The theme of the poem is that even when things seem impossible, avoiding conflict and having faith in God will lead you down the right path. The poetic structure and arrangement of stanzas displays no particular pattern. Each line takes on a different shape ranging from two to seven words in length. Since there is no rhyme scheme, the poem is classified as free verse, with the author’s thoughts flowing from line to line. However, each stanza’s length decreases throughout the poem, building towards a climatic effect.
The author discusses both the destructive and peaceful ways to overcome challenges before closing her final thought, “I incline in the wrong direction/a voice cries faint as in a dream”. This passage shows that following the right path in life will enable God to help you overcome adversaries in life. The use of poetic form contributes to the relationship between elements to create an effective ending. Tone and imagery are used to illustrate the poem under a post-colonial lens. In the first stanza, “armies with trumpets/whose all at once blast/shatters the foundations” gives off an aggressive tone. A warlike image forms in the reader’s mind to provide context to the background of the author.
Joy Kogawa is a Canadian poet, sent to live in Japanese internment camps during World War II. This poem is a recollection of her personal experiences which creates a cruel tone and underlying mood of empathy amongst readers. The Japanese were marginalized in Canada when Britain and its allies were fighting the Axis powers. They were imprisoned in these camps, hence the use of personification “there are words/to whisper by a loose brick/wailing prayers to utter”. By giving bricks the human quality of speech, the author is insinuating that communication between walls was done in secret or that from being isolated people experienced hallucinations. The author’s use of tone and imagery helps to examine the poem under a post-colonial lens.
The poem “Where there’s a wall” by Joy Kogawa can be analyzed using a post-colonial lens through the use of structure, theme, tone, poetic devices, and imagery.
