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 poem? In the poem Half-Caste by John Agard the poet uses ridicule to put his point across, he uses this technique very effectively and many times and by the end of the poem you realise how stupid the fact of someone being a Half Caste is. The poem is about a man from the West Indies and is called Half Caste, which means of mixed race. The poem starts off with a verse off three lines all written in Standard English. Even in this very short part we can see the way the poet is using ridicule when he says ‘standing on one leg’, this is inferring that because he is a ‘half-caste’ he is only standing on one leg and that only one half the white half of him means anything to most people. It may seem like a ridiculous idea that he should stand on one leg but it does show how stupid the idea that someone can only stand on one leg because he is off mixed race. The poem then goes into a West Indian accent and it then makes another example like mixing colours makes him a half-caste. It then says ‘explain yuself’ again as it did at the start of the verse, this is repeated many times through the poem and becomes a sort of chorus. It is then always followed by an example, in this case comparing light and shadow to black and white. Light and shadow is a euphemism for black and white. The poem then goes onto a line, which really uses ridicule to get the point across, but whilst adding a little humour it shows an extremely vital point that we all as individuals should think about, it says about English weather being half caste. We all know the joke about English weather being bad and traditionally always cloudy and rainy. When we say that the weather is half-caste we are really saying it is not as good as it should be, do we also mean this when we call a person of mixed race a ‘half caste’. That line has double intentions as well as saying about English weather not being very good it also questions our thoughts on people of mixed race and whether we look down on them. The poet then uses light hearted ridicule again when he says about Tchaikovsky using the black and white key on a piano this is saying that he is not half caste but what about someone who only uses white keys does that make them a racist.