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Question
The power of poetry lies in suggestion and understatement. Discuss this with reference to the poem.
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Solution
Understatement means to state or represent less strongly or strikingly than the facts would bear out. Thus, it is a very well known fact that it is very understating to decide one's status or level of knowledge based on his/her color. The play of words between the landlady and the poet clearly proves that a man's color and the region has nothing to do with the levels of education he has attained and the power of wisdom he possesses. The questions posed by the landlady became a mockery at her own level of intellect. Thus, the poem very strongly suggests that the question of civilisation does not rest on its own color. Soyinka humorously uses sarcasm as he says 'Shamed/By ill-mannered silence" when it is obvious that is the woman who is the ill-mannered of the two.
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