One common theme of both story is power imbalance. As we know in history, slaves were mistreated and was treated as property. In Malagasy, metaphor was heavily used to express love. The expression of love of one another shows that power was not equal like in Ohabolana. In the poetry, the speakers feels they want to reconcile the relationship and have a balance whereas slaves have no sort of equality. The two poetry can be very difference since one is talking about love and one is the harsh treatment towards.

I found this topic to be very related to the Malagasy Wisdom Poetry. Both presentation has both similarities and differences.  In Malagasy Wisdom of poetry, it history is somewhat related towards the people. One major differences I found is the pictures for each presentation. The picture I represented shows leaders where their goal is to unify the people of Madagascar, King Andrianampoinimerina and Queen Ranavalona I. King Andrianampoinimerina and Queen Ranavalona I both try to unify the people of Madagascar where as in the United States, the slave owners wanted to keep it. In addition, there was a power struggle in both story. In the U.S, their government had a power struggle between the North and the South where the North appose slavery and and the South was pro slavery.  Queen Ranavalona was described as a “weak” ruler since she was fail to stop the European conquest (the French). Andrianampoinimerina use force to unify the kingdom of of Malagasy and Madagascar like the south wanted. Even though his picture do not seem heroic, he had the power to make his goal into reality. Similarly, U.S slaves was forced on their will and abused by slave owners. This is also similar when the French colonize Madagascar.

At the end, both picture and poetry show an imbalance of power and how each power was used.