Section vii- first line
“One-legged frogs”
This sentence immediately made me think of the plagues of Egypt. The whole theme surrounding this poem is obviously environmentalism and that the Earth has become plagued with uncaring habitants. Then this sentence comes into play and it brings in a religious element to the poem. In biblical times, Egypt was taken by ten plagues which were imposed by God since the Pharaoh did not want to let the israelites free from the slavery they were in. The plagues made it almost impossible to live in Egypt by turning its river water into blood, having frogs invade the land, making the livestock sick, etc. The one-legged frogs are Osbourne’s version of what will happen if we keep taking for granted Earth’s riches and we will all be punished for our harm.
http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/epidemics/tp/10PlaguesEgypt.htm
1 response so far ↓
JMERLE // Nov 30th 2015 at 11:37 am
Yes, Natalia, this is a good quote with your reference, and it is certainly one of the issues Osundare is exploring. Also, he has the tendency to make certain mythological/biblical references, while at the same time somehow distorting them. It’s not just a plague of frogs, but mutated, one-legged frogs, and one connotation is that something natural is now in the hands of humanity, and out of the hands of Nature. Or is it? Osundare seems to be posing this question, among so many others. We’ll discuss this more in class.