In Exile By Arthur Nortje Summary

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In Exile, by Arthur Nortje “Exile is an individual, human experience, one that resonates, even if only for a moment, within all of us. Exile is an integral component to the overall human condition...” - Anaya M. Baker “Open skies flare wide enough to make me vaguely anxious.” The first line of the poem draws a direct connection to the title of the poem. The open skies that Nortje refers to, remind me of the vast open landscapes of South Africa with the striking blue sky. It is rather ironic in context that even though he was born in a significantly beautiful country, he still had feelings of anxiousness and was never completely at ease due to the political instability of that time. I would even go as far as saying that he experienced feelings of estrangement/exile within himself, he was…show more content…
In an attempt to flee his current state and create a better future for himself he applied for a scholarship, which he received. He lived in exile; he had no sense of stability or a support system. The only way he could make it bearable was by creating paradise in his thoughts and by writing. The following quote has a certain familiarity to it: “But wrong pigment has no scope, so clot the blue channel of memory. On a sand slope I build a picture of the sea.” It reminds me of imagery used in The Madonna of Excelsior by Zakes Mda. “The ground is red. The sky is blue. The boy is red. The faces of the women are blue. Their hats are yellow and their dresses are blue.” (Extracted from chapter 1, page 1). The images that were described were simply a memory of a painting of black women in a field harvesting wheat. Where the significance comes in is with the description of blue faces. They have no emotion. They are in the far distance doing as they should. They are mere silhouettes in the distance and artist more often than not paint black people or silhouettes in the distance in a dark shade of blue to create a sense of depth. Nortje speaks of a blue

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