Half-Caste by John Agard How effective is the light-hearted ridicule :: English Literature

Half-Caste by John Agard How effective is the light-hearted ridicule in this poetry?In the poem Half-Caste by John Agard the poet uses ridicule to put hispoint across, he uses this technique very effectively and many timesand by the end of the poem you realise how stupid the fact of someonebeing a Half Caste is.The poem is close a man from the West Indies and is c anyed Half Caste,which pith of mixed race. The poem starts off with a verseoff three lines all written in Standard English. Even in this very niggling part we can see the way the poet is using ridicule when he says braveing on one leg, this is inferring that because he is ahalf-caste he is exactly standing on one leg and that only one half thewhite half of him concocts anything to most people. It may seem like aridiculous idea that he should stand on one leg but it does show howstupid the idea that someone can only stand on one leg because he isoff mixed race.The poem consequently goes into a West Indian accent and it then makes another typesetters case like mixing colours makes him a half-caste. It then saysexplain yuself again as it did at the start of the verse, this isrepeated many times through the poem and becomes a sort of chorus. Itis then always followed by an example, in this case comparing lightand shadow to murky and white. Light and shadow is a euphemism forblack and white.The poem then goes onto a line, which really uses ridicule to get thepoint across, but whilst adding a little humour it shows an extremelyvital point that we all as individuals should think about, it saysabout English weather being half caste. We all know the joke aboutEnglish weather being fearful and traditionally always cloudy and rainy.When we say that the weather is half-caste we are really saying it isnot as good as it should be, do we also mean this when we call aperson of mixed race a half caste. That line has double intentionsas well as saying about English weather not being very good it alsoquestions o ur thoughts on people of mixed race and whether we lookdown on them.The poet then uses light hearted ridicule again when he says aboutTchaikovsky using the black and white key on a piano this is sayingthat he is not half caste but what about someone who only uses whitekeys does that make them a racist.