Brief Analysis of Meeting the British

Brief Analysis of Meeting the British

       Meeting the British is one of Paul Muldoon’s representatives, a poem describing the cruel British colonial activities in the North America in 1763. Just like his other poems, Paul Muldoon expresses his aversion to the colonial intrusion in a flat tone with romantic expressions. However, between the lines of words, we could still deeply sense the human original kind nature destroyed by the evil nature. This paper aims at exploring a brief analysis of Meeting the British in terms of its tone, theme, diction, and imagery.

To start with, Paul Muldoon uses a flat tone to indicate a fierce battle. This poem is about how the British invaders cheat the kind native Indian Americans and prepare to subjugate them. However, there is not a single word in this poem has the direct meaning of the cruelty of colonization. The whole poem depicts the first meeting between the native Indians and the British colonizers by the view of an Indian American. There is no argue, no fight, and no violence. It is not until the last line of the poem that the reader understands who “meets the British” and what is the truth after this romantic scene. After realizing the true intention of the British invaders by the last line, the reader will be shocked by the strong contrast. It is like claim a person’s death with a sunny smile. This strong contrast has a stronger influence to express the cruelty of the colonization than any existing vocabulary.

In addition, the theme of Meeting the British is to condemn the evil colonialism and oppose any human violence. In order to draw the reader’s attention on this theme, Paul Muldoon uses a direct reference to colonizers “Jeffery Amherst” and “Henry Bouquet” in the poem. Also, this poem alludes to the British colonization of his country Ireland in the middle ages. At that time, As people got hopeless in a political event, culture or literature as an alternative to politics got access to local people during 1970s and 1980s (Steinberger, 70). Paul Muldoon grew up with the influence of British colonization. For a young poet work in Northern Ireland in the 1970s, a more pressing form of violence sprang from the political conflict around him (Wills, 38). It is the British colonization that he is confused with his nationality and forces him to move around. So he, in turn, has a deep feeling of the cruelty of colonization, which expresses in his works. Meeting the British was published in 1987. It is “the transitional period of Muldoon’s life during his movement to America, which witnessed Muldoon’s own transition and change due to his own radical change of life and creative experiences” (Wills, 129). Clearly, the cruelty of colonization is not only death, but also cultural and radical invasion. In this poem, these two lines “and, no less strange, myself calling out in French” show that the cultural invasion to an Indian-American. Patriot as Paul Muldoon is, he condemns the cruelty of the British colonization and feels sorry for the native Indian Americans.

What is more, Paul Muldoon uses a lot of dictions as his allusive style, like a pun, symbolism, and metaphor. Some examples are set as follows. In the line, “two streams coming together” Paul uses metaphor to indicate that the Indian American has met the British colonizers. And in the line “The sky was lavender and the snow lavender”, the poet uses the diction pun here. On one hand, it describes the purity of the nature and peace of the Indian American’s homeland. On the other hand, this line is used to stress the purity of the Indian American’s nature. Another example is also set in the line “in the dead of winter”. It expresses the extreme cold weather, but it also indicates that a lot of people will die in that winter. Moreover, Paul puts the word “handkerchief” separately in two lines on purpose. The “handkerchief” is a symbol of the advanced industrialization. The poet makes it splitting to symbolize that the industrialization doesn’t correspond to this land. Nevertheless, the follow French sentence indicates the land border colonization, as well as the cultural colonization. It symbolizes that the British invaders will conquer this land and will force this land to correspond to the industrialization. By comparing the good and evil of human nature, Paul Muldoon gives this poem a title “Meeting the British”. As defined in the Oxford Dictionary, the verb “meet” means “to come together formally in order to discuss something” (Hornby, 1085). Why would the Indian Americans like to “meet” the British colonizers after they start to destroy their homeland? The answer lies in the original kindness in the Indian Americans’ nature. Though abominating the British colonizers, the Indian Americans are still willing to accept the British’s proposal to live together in peace. They will still accept their gifts because they trust the kindness of human nature. On the contrary, the British colonizers make use of the kindness of the Indian Americans and give them smallpox as a gift in response to the Indian Americans’ trust. Paul Muldoon uses this verb to make a comparison of two different parts in the human natures, stressing the Indian American’s superiority in moral characters. Also, the verb “meet” stresses the Indian Americans’ equality to the British colonizers. Though lagged behind in the civilization and weapons, the Indian Americans are not inferior. Their kindness and bravery make them stand even with the British.

Last but not least, this poem has a very strong sense of imagery. Instead of depicting the deaths and fights, Paul Muldoon catches several small detailed actions to organize a romantic scene for the readers. We can easily feel a picture in front of our eyes by these several sentences. Two groups of people meet in a cold winter. One colonel shakes out his hand with a sinister smile, and one Indian American holds his hand naively with a genuine smile. Then the Indian Americans accept two blankets from the British as a gift. This scene is supposed to friendly, but we can foresee the cruel deaths and slaughters after this warm scene. These are enough for the readers to understand the feeling that Paul intends to express.

To sum up, as a predominant contemporary poet, Paul Muldoon expresses his aversion to the human violence in Meeting the British in his style. He uses pun, symbolism and metaphor to describe the British colonial intrusion over the Indian Americans in an obscure way. By comparing the two different sides of human nature, Paul Muldoon condemns the British colonizers and feels sorry for the kind Indian Americans, as well as people in his country who have suffered the British colonization.