Civilisation is a developed society where humans coexist and collaborate to further enhance their quality of life. ‘Requiem: Dedication’ shows the suffering of people living in a developed country, and how individuals are still able to continue after tragedies. ‘Africa’ shows the pain endured by a continent’s people in their first encounters with outsiders, and the hypocrisy of the ones inflicting the torture on the ‘barbarians’. I will argue that though the two poems are written by two different people in different times and languages, they still write about the same emotions, showing that those feelings are universally experienced ‘Requiem; Dedication’ shows how much suffering people are willing to endure for love. Akhmatova sets the scene with “does not flow” and “stay frozen”, creating an image …show more content…
The effect of the final word shows through “She’s thrown down like a rock / The heart gives up its blood”. The shock and pain of knowing that they cannot come back is so strong it feels like her heart has stopped, completely and utterly devastating her. But she is still able to continue, as Akhmatova describes her with “Yet goes...swaying...she can still walk.” To ‘sway’ whilst walking means that you are unable to balance yourself. The woman has suffered psychological pain, which gives rise to physical effects. This shows that she has been unsteadied by the news both literally and figuratively. Repetition of the lexus ‘still’ shows how they have been expected to act a certain way after finding out about their loved ones, but somehow they have defied that, continuing to live. They have decided against becoming indifferent in order to protect themselves, instead using love to provide an incentive to persevere past fear. Becoming fully indifferent would be the optimal solution to protect an individual, but this takes away the meaning of being a