Half Caste and Two Scavengers in a Truck, Two Beautiful People in a Mercedes :: John Agard Lawrence Ferlinghetti Culture Essays

Half Caste and Two Scavengers in a Truck, Two Beautiful People in a Mercedes Of the two poems from the other cultures booklet, I have decided to compare â€Å"Half-caste† by John Agard and â€Å"Two Scavengers in a Truck, Two Beautiful People in a Mercedes† by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. In this essay I will discuss the meaning of the two poems and what the poet is trying to get the reader to think and / or realise. The poem describes four people held together for a moment at a red traffic light. There are two scavengers, garbage men 'on their way home' after their round, and two beautiful people, an elegant couple 'on the way to his architect's office'. The garbage men’s day ends where the young couple's begins. The poet compares the two pairs in detail, and then seems to ask - at the end of the poem - whether America really is a democracy. The poem's structure is fairly free. The poet doesn't use punctuation; instead, he begins a new line when he wants us to pause in our reading. This slows the poem down and gives us time to appreciate each idea. The poem appears very fragmented on the page. This might suggest the fragmented or 'broken' nature of society? The language used in this poem is used in different ways to convey his ideas. For example; the title shows us straight away that the poem will be about the contrasts between two pairs of people. ‘Scavengers’ is a belittling term for the garbage men because it suggests that they live off the rubbish of others - a scavenger beetle lives off rotting flesh. However, Beautiful People is a compliment. So, right from the start, we feel the garbage men are at a disadvantage. In line 7 Ferlinghetti writes the garbage men are 'looking down' into the Mercedes. This is literally because the garbage truck is taller than the car; there is a hidden ironic message too. You might have expected the rich couple to 'look down on' the garbage men, not the other way round. The descriptions of the four people are very visual, making it easy to imagine the scene. Appearances tell us a lot. The rich couple are very fashionable: he has an expensive 'hip three-piece linen suit' (line 11) while her blond hair is 'casually coifed' (line 13). On the other hand, the garbage men are grungy (line 17). The younger one has sunglasses & long hair (line 24) just like the Mercedes driver, which forces us to compare the two. The poem wants us to seriously consider how different two people of the same age and race could be so