Class 12 English Poem The Awakening Age

As the word glorifies itself, ‘the awakening age’ in the Class 12 English Poem The Awakening Age refers to the critical period when Africans realize and become fully conscious about their situation, as well as the time to actively create their new world. They realize that this is finally the time of peace, harmony, integrity, liberty, happiness, prosperity, unity, and creativity amongst the people. They strongly believe that their new, enlightened world will arrive after the dark shadow of Nigeria’s brutal civil war.

In my view, these people have ‘lived with poverty’s rage’ because, for a long time in history, Africans were ruthlessly exploited by the Americans and Europeans. Colonial powers did long injustice to the people of Africa and extracted their natural resources without fair compensation. Also meanwhile, due to the lengthy, bloody civil war in African countries like Nigeria, political stability was almost negligible.

As a result of this deep instability, a few strong, corrupt people gained absolute control of the authority. This further resulted in an extreme imbalance in the distribution of natural resources and national wealth. The ordinary people of Africa were kept beyond knowledge and light; they didn’t even know that life could exist completely out of poverty. They were also heavily preoccupied with various internal problems like civil war, racial discrimination, religious conflict, cultural strife, and ethnic division, which neglected the daily suffering of ordinary Nigerians. Thus, poverty’s rage had haunted them all their lives.

The poet urgently appeals for solidarity among the people to make a tangible reality out of their profound hope to form a new world for themselves. He wishes for all of Nigeria’s unfortunate and poor people to collectively reach the new height of unity, prosperity, hope, truth, wisdom, liberty, and creativity. He strongly believes that solidarity—and only absolute solidarity—amongst them can effectively help them to overcome their systemic challenges, political divisions, and historical sufferings.

Yes, the poet presents migration in a highly positive light as it helps the people to radically change their perceptions and experiences. Mostly, the migrants are of the ambitious working-age population. Migration helps people to raise their height of cultural acceptance and helps to grow their intellectual and economic condition to a new, advanced state from their past one.

In the poem, the poet warmly wishes for them to be unified, smart, prosperous, and creative in the new age of awakening, and appeals for solidarity across borders to create a new world. Most of us have seen that migrants bring valuable skills with them. Some bring financial capital and some bring brilliant creativity. They try to craft their unique ideas, knowledge, and learning in recipient countries. They also wish to be continuously innovative and contribute positively to both their host society and their homeland.

Yes, Nepal is widely known for its massive number of economic and educational migrants. The data shows that each year thousands of people pursue going abroad for education and employment. Certainly, I have noticed many profound changes in the perceptions and behaviours of these migrants when they return home. I have clearly noticed the change in their attitude and broader way of thinking.

As a person opens up in a wide, global space from a narrow, localized door, he experiences many new things, explores many cultural heights, learns, thinks, crafts, and thus his way of thinking and way of seeing the world is certainly changed for the better. Every worker or student brings their hard-gained knowledge and actively tries to use it to improve their homeland. Whether it is capital gain or a university degree, they try to craft new opportunities from them. They gain financial literacy, learn to invest smartly, and keep the burning hope of changing traditional thoughts and strict parameters that normally limit societal exploration. These are the different, positive perceptions that I have personally seen in people returning from abroad into my community.

The unique rhyme scheme of this sonnet is highly sonorous and consists exclusively of coupled lines: AA BB CC DD EE FF GG. It can be said that it is the melodic poetry of optimism and hope. The poet is trying to vividly show the idealized, harmonious existence of Africans, especially Nigerians, in the “new world of awakening” with the direct assistance of the poem’s perfectly balanced rhyme pattern.

All of the lines and rhyming phrases within the couplets are deeply linked with the future lives of Nigerians and their ideal way of life. The paired rhyming gives a sense of unity, walking side-by-side, which reflects the themes of realization, hope, and solidarity. He also wishes for wisdom, liberty, knowledge, and joy to be perfectly paired in their lives. His excellent, unified rhyming scheme perfectly synchronizes with the ideal, structured, and peaceful existence of Nigerians in the newly unified world of the awakening age.