DEATH IN THE DAWN (Wole Soyinka)

This poem inspired by the poet’s experience of seeing a man killed in a motor accident while travelling early in the morning. The sight leads to thoughts about the uncertainty of life and the dangers that lie in the way of the traveller - the person actually going on a journey and, metaphorically, man in the journey of life. Irony is clear in the title of the poem, as dawn implies beginning and hope, while death destroys. This irony in life is presented in the major images of the poem.
Lines 15-19:
“On this
Counterpane, it was -
Sudden winter at the death
Of dawn’s lone trumpeter. Cascades
Of white feather-flakes …”
describes the accidental killing of a cock by the traveller’s car. Now the killing of a cock should have been a sacrifice to have made the journey safe, but the presumed sacrifice is fruitless. From line 30: “Perverse impalement…”
we are given the felt description of the death of the man crushed by the car. The irony here is that cars are made for man’s swift travelling (“progression”) and are signs of man’s progress. Cars are man’s “invention”; but cars kill man. At the end of the poem, the poet is shocked into identifying himself with the distorted figure of the killed man, thereby making the incident described in the poem apply universally.
There is no doubt that the poem is complex, but this should encourage us to read it often. The poet’s imagination is working at a high pitch in which he says much in a few words. The solution of the riddles in the images add excitement so that as often as we read the poem, we learn new things. Here are explanations of some of the images:
Line 3: “dog-nose wetness of the earth” The poet here compares the morning wetness with dew of the earth to the wetness of the dog’s nose.
Line 4: “Let sunrise quench your lamps”
The early traveller uses the light of a lamp which he would put out when the sunrise appears.
Line 5: “Faint brush prickling in the sky”
describes the appearance of the rays of the sun on the horizon just before dawn.
Lines 6-7: “Cotton feet … on the hoe”
refers to farmers going early to till their farms (“break the early earthworm”); “cottoned feet because the soles of the feet are soft, not covered by shoes. Cottoned feet could also refer to the practice in some places where farmers tie rags on their feet when going to work in the early morning to protect themselves against earthworms and hookworms.
Lines 7-8: “On the hoe, And shadows stretch with sap
Not twilight’s death and sad prostration,”
The early morning shadows are long like the twilight shadows, but whereas the morning shadows will grow darker and stronger as the sun rises, the twilight shadows lead towards disappearance in the night. Notice how the image strengthens the point of the poem.
Lines 9-10: “This soft kindling, soft receding breeds
Racing joys and apprehensions… for a naked day.”
As you travel in the morning, objects become brighter and clearer as you come towards them and then dimmer as they are lost in the mist as you pass them. This process is for the poet, parallel to the swift changing from hopes and joys to fears and doubts about the day, as one does not yet know what the day will bring - the day is yet naked like the baby; what it will turn into is yet uncertain.
Lines 11-13: “…Burden hulks retract,
Stoop to the mist in faceless throng
To wake the silent markets…”
describe the appearance of the traveller of those carrying their loads to market in early morning.
Line 17: “sudden winter”
Winter is a symbol of cold and death. Also, snow falls in winter and so the phrase prepares us for the falling, like snow, of the cock’s white feathers.
Line 18: “dawn’s lone trumpeter” the cock.
Lines 22-25:
“And the mother prayed, Child
May you never walk
When the road waits…”
The poet here reproduces a superstitious belief about travelling: set out with the right foot and you will be alright; set out with the left and your journey will be unlucky.
Lines 33-34:
“Silenced in the startled hug of
Your invention - “
Describes the sudden impact of the car, man’s invention, which kills (silences) him.
--- Donatus Ibe Nwoga, 1967