Half-caste - John Agard

• “leg”


  “standing on one leg”
• “yuself”


  “explain yuself“
• “weather”


  “england weather nearly always half-caste”
• “whole“


  “an de whole of yu mind”
• “symphony”


  “half-caste symphony”
• "standing on one leg"

  • connotes instability and imbalance
  • implies that Agard is not stable or secure in his identity
• "explain yuself"

  • directly challenges society's presumptions via direct address
  • demanding, imperative language
  • dialect illustrated through phonetic spelling of pronoun "yuself", reflecting Agard's identity
  • repeated throughout poem, giving Agard an accusatory and confrontational tone
• "england weather nearly always half-caste"

  • juxtaposition - "nearly always"
  • pokes fun at and points out the stupidity in racial prejudice by talking metaphorically
  • "england" is not capitalised, as well as other proper nouns like the names of artists Agard also references throughout the poem
• "half-caste symphony"

  • metaphors such as "an mix a black key wid a white key is a half-caste symphony" involving arts and music depicts the fact that things are beautiful when different or mixed and pokes holes in the derogatory term "half-caste"
  • use of auditory imagery which emphasises the impression of the beauty of being part of two cultures
• "an de whole of yu mind"

  • repetition of "whole" contrasts the previous repetition of "half" and the "half" in the final stanza
  • contrast between previously mentioned personal pronouns "I" and the quoted pronouns "yu" evidences the narrator's sense of isolation and distance as a result of racist treatment
• • no full stops throughout entire poem
  • proper nouns not capitalised
  • start of every stanza except the last stanza is capitalised