In the poem “I Have Walked a Long Time”, Sonia Sanchez uses a plethora of figurative language, a desolate and melancholic reflective tone, and syntax change in changing stanzas to showcase the effect of ancestorial suffering, the changing emotions that are swelling in the speaker, and the hidden feelings that the speaker speakers, ultimately showing how the changing generations are moving away from past suffering, bringing their own new fears to light.
To start, Sanchez uses multiple figurative languages such as personification to describe the ancestorial suffering that is still relevant in the speaker's life. Personification is used in many way throughout the poem. We see the very first instance in line 2-3, where the speakers states that they have walked further than “death that splinters / wid her innuendos...” (Sanchez). The
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The speaker knows that it is not just their ancestors that were suffering, but they have their own suffering as well. First, the speaker refers to their life as an “alienated life” (Sanchez 4), something that is foreign and had gotten away from them. Due to their life being an “echo of nostalgia” (Sanchez 5), it makes it seem that they became to focused on what suffered their ancestors, and not what they were currently suffering. They also felt as if their life wasn’t their own, being something “walked by [the] memories of others” (Sanchez 24). When you realize that your life is not your own, something foreign, written by others, it makes you feel isolated from yourself and others. There is also a tragedy in that. That is where the speaker’s melancholic reflective attitude comes from, seeing the tragedy of their life. That said, part of this comes from the author’s own life, feeling as if her history was written by others, not herself or her people. Ultimately, it is a