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Literary Analysis Of 'Lot's Wife And Africa'

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‘Lot’s Wife’ and ‘Africa’ are poems depicting the effects of the abuse of power and how the forceful villains mistreat others due to their positions of ’ superiority and trust. ‘Lot’s Wife’ shows how under a tyrannous rule which holds no regard for personal emotions renders people either devoid of humanity, Lot, or devoid of life, Lot’s Wife. ‘Africa’ demonstrates the chaos and terror involved in invasion and how an overwhelming military force and covetousness can crush the magic and God out of a place. I will argue that both poems show how excessive force and violence can have a strong impact upon both people and places as they circumscribe emotion and obliterate the potential of a civilization. ‘Lot’s Wife’ indicates how unsettling and unnatural the presence of the harbingers of caustic rulers can be. In line 1, the adjective “just” is used to describe Lot as he “trailed” behind the Angel. Just is used with a touch of sarcasm as Lot is only just because he follows the Angel. The verb “trailed” could have been replaced by “followed” or a verb which is more indicative of any interest in …show more content…

In line 13, the rhetorical question “Who mourns one woman in a holocaust?”, is the employment of a persuasive tone which emphasizes Lot’s wife 's importance to her. The tense changes from past to present tense in the last stanza makes Lot’s wife’s situation more relevant and invokes more empathy. In line 16 the lexis “steal” brings to light how she is viewed as a criminal simply by acting out of her humanity. The entire poem is a quatrain and is in a rigid form to emulate the conditions of strictness Lot’s wife experienced. Lot’s wife is villainized due to acting out of emotion and her death is so unnoticed that it motivates Anna to mourn for Lot’s wife herself, which is asserted by “yet in my heart she will never be

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