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Discuss the central theme in “New Tongue” by Elizabeth Kamara
A theme is the recurring idea or message conveyed in a literary text. There are a number of themes in Elizabeth Kamara’s “New Tongue”. The central theme of the poem, however, is the loss of cultural heritage and identity among a new generation that abandons its traditional ways of life in favour of a foreign culture, language, and worldview. This uncritical embrace of “the new” severs the bonds of family, tradition, and community. It leaves behind a generation that is culturally rootless.
From the outset, the poet establishes this loss through the image of language itself. The poem opens with the new generation speaking “a new tongue” and dancing “new dances,” their minds “battered into new modes and shapes.” The poet’s choice of “battered” for example hints at both the violent imposition of a foreign culture and the forceful displacement of the generation’s cultural heritage. The “old songs,” symbols of ancestral heritage, are now dismissed as mere “disregarded dreams” and “remnants of a past”. The poet clearly uses language to reduce tradition to something dead and irrelevant.
Kamara further shows the human cost of this cultural shift, as illustrated in the breakdown of family and communal ties. She writes that these ties are “loosened, broken, burnt,” their ashes “strewn into the bottomless sea” while indifferent fishes swim by, “careless of the loss.” This image of irrecoverable destruction indicates that what has been lost cannot easily be retrieved. The new generation is described as “careless of bonds / Of family / Of tradition / Of heritage,” a refrain that hammers home the totality of their detachment. Elders, too, are excluded. Apparently, the erosion of tradition also entails a loss of respect for age and wisdom, both central to African communal values.
Closely tied to this theme is the rise of individualism, which is captured starkly in the line “Every man / for himself / by himself / of himself.” The isolation mirrored here is a sharp contrast to the communal ethos the poem implies has been lost. She also graphically describes, with destructive natural imagery like “a strange coldness … gusts of wind falling trees and carting roofs away,” the upheaval and exposure that come with abandoning one’s cultural foundation.
The poet also uses the biblical allusion of “parted red sea long ago” to equate this generational rupture to what happened decisively and long ago, beyond easy reversal. The new generation, according to her, does not regret the cultural loss. It exudes with apparent indifference to what has been left behind.
In sum, the theme of cultural loss runs through every stanza of the poem. It is notably conveyed through imagery of destruction (fire, ashes, storm). Therefore, the poem functions in two important ways. One, it mourns the generation’s disconnection from its roots. Two, it implicitly warns of the dangers that come with wholesale rejection of one’s heritage: alienation, fractured families, and a hollow sense of self.
Related:
- Multiple Choice Questions on “New Tongue” by Elizabeth L. A. Kamara
- Q & A: Examine the conflict between tradition and modernity in “New Tongue” by Elizabeth Kamara
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