Mafika Gwala's 'We lie under Tall Gum-Trees'
Mafika Gwala's 'We lie under Tall Gum-Trees' explores a new level of sexual intercourse. In this essay Gwala's ironic ideas of love, union, emotional wars and sexual activities will become apparent throughout his poem by exploring his past and splashing into the deep end of his creativity of 'We lie under Tall gum-Trees'Mafika Pascal Gwala was born in 1946 in Kwa-Zulu Natal. He spent much of his childhood in Mpumalanga and in a predominantly working-class township near Durban. Later in life after being a teacher and a legal clerk he lived in Johannesburg and later on in England where he did research on adult education at the University of Manchester. 'Gwala emerged as a significant writer and theorist in the late 1960's and early 1970's, during a crucial period' in which, South Africa experienced a literacy revival of black voices that had previously been silenced by repression.Gwala was closely connected with 'the black South Africans Student Organization.' Gwala together with many other creative workers such as Mbuyiseni Mtshali 'wrote and encouraged others to think in a way that expressed the political, social, cultural and emotional needs and aspirations of all those who had been victimized by apartheid.'
This image of the industrialised factory gives a degraded image of romance and thus our cliched image in stanza one becomes questionable. Our mosquitoes bring along with them an image of industrialisation 'factory' on a degraded world 'swamps. 'The Flea' is a lighthearted poem in which two people become united. The stereotype that women are more emotional than men is illustrated in the last two lines of stanza two, where the women becomes aware of her change in feelings towards her lover ' towards awareness' and after she becomes aware first 'First you' then the male lover becomes aware of his emotions towards his female lover 'Then me' The third stanza of the poem enforces the image of the sexual action being completed 'now no more a virgin' on one level and the violent bite of the mosquito being completed on another. The swarm of mosquito's that hover over the lovers emphasise this huge mass of emotions as it is not just one mosquito that hovers over them but a huge swarm of mosquitoes depicting it is not just a few emotion which surround the lovers but a massive crowd of emotions. Whilst implying that traditionally a sexual activity take place in the dark and creates the setting of our loves in stanza one. The stars and the evening clouds, 'hidden from the moonlight, the stars and the silvery summer clouds' leaving these two lovers alone coupled with emotions and like John Milton stated when referring to Adam and Eve 'Imparadised in one another's arms. Mosquito's are known for injecting infections microorganisms that cause such diseases like malaria, yellow fever and dengue. Gwala's final lines 'the painful joy of love' use an oxymoron to explain this painful process of engaging sexual activities and the reality of these actions for the first time as contrasted to the pure joy of love and unity. The image of war once again intrudes on our fairytale world in stanza one 'silvery summer clouds' which leads us into the next image, where our lovers emotions have 'spiraled' out of control 'and as we spiraled' they slowly become aware of their emotions and their actions. In the twenty-first century sexual intercourse has to been liked with deadly diseases such as Aids which is ironic as sexual intercourse was intended by God to be a unity between a husband and a wife who love each other and in this unity they become one. It gives the sense that this sexual action she has just committed is not as glamorous as the cliche people imagine it to be and this truth is to her is most painful. ' Uniting both these character with the mixture of the mosquito's blood in the mosquito and the characters blood with the mosquito's poison in each of the lovers, uniting each other through the mixing of blood where this unity is only a valid action in respects to true love. Females feed on blood of warm-blooded animals of which humans are a prime example.
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Acceptance Essays
