Once Upon a Time

Gabriel Okara’s ‘Once Upon a Time’ has a fairy-tale-like beginning. In the guise of such a title,
Okara reveals a harsh fact about modern times. Nowadays, people greet others only with their
expressions, not with all their hearts. Besides, this poem also features the clash of cultures,
African culture, and modern Western culture. The poet depicts how modernity has changed their
culture as well as the mindset of people. It is told from the perspective of a father who is telling
this story to his son.

Summary

‘Once Upon a Time’ by Gabriel Okara presents a conversation between a father and son. The father
describes how the art of greeting one another has transformed into a mere give-and-take of fake
smiles.

This poem begins with a series of three images: greeting someone, welcoming them to their
house, and saying goodbye. The speaker of this poem tells his son how people react in those
given situations. Firstly, they greet their relatives or known ones with fake smiles. Verbally they
welcome their close ones, but mentally they keep their doors closed on them. Lastly, at the time
of parting, they wear a fake smile again and bid each other hiding their selfish emotions.
Thinking about such things, the speaker becomes so sad that he somehow wants to unlearn such
void customs. He wants to be a child again like his son and relearn the art of innocence and pure
happiness.

Reading this poem, I felt the deep sense of disillusionment that the speaker carries. The contrast
between past authenticity and the present’s hollow gestures resonates strongly, as we’ve all
encountered moments of social insincerity. The father’s plea to his son to “relearn” how to smile
and laugh feels like an honest cry for emotional rebirth. This poem reflects the pressure we face
to conform, to wear masks, and to hide our true selves. Yet, beneath that surface, there’s a
yearning for something real, something untouched by societal expectations, making the poem
profoundly human and relatable.

Structure
This poem consists of 43 lines that are separated into seven stanzas. Each stanza does not contain
a specific line count. The lines are segregated according to the subject matter. This poem is
written from the point of view of a first-person speaker. So, it’s a lyric. As the text does not
contain a specific rhyming scheme, it is a free-verse poem. In some instances, readers can
find rhyming but they don’t occur in a regular fashion. Apart from that, the poem is mostly
composed of the iambic meter with some metrical variations.

Literary Devices

Okara’s poem ‘Once Upon a Time’ contains the following literary devices that are not limited to
the devices mentioned below:

 Enjambment: It occurs throughout the text; For example: “they used to laugh with their
hearts/ and laugh with their eyes”
 Repetition: In the first stanza, the word “laugh” is repeated for the sake of emphasis. A
similar scheme also goes for the following stanza. The words “shake hands” are repeated
there.
 Metaphor: Okara uses several metaphors in this poem such as “ice-block-cold eyes,”
“homeface,” “officeface,” etc.
 Simile: “with all their conforming smiles/ like a fixed portrait,” and “shows only my
teeth like a snake’s bare fangs?”
 Imagery: This poem contains several images that include shaking hands, smiling, and
facial expressions in different situations.
 Alliteration: “So show me, son,” “But believe me”

Themes

Okara incorporates the themes of cultural crisis, selfishness, loss of innocence, and real emotion
vs fake expression in his poem ‘Once Upon a Time’. The main theme of this poem is the cultural
crisis. Though readers cannot find this theme directly in the text, it is an integral part of the
poem. For example, when the poetic persona speaks of the contemporary fashion of greetings, he
actually speaks about the crisis in his indigenous culture. The sense of loss is reflected in
his tone. Besides, the loss of innocence is another theme of this poem. This theme is integrated
into the lines “I want/ to unlearn all these muting things…” How people express their fakeness
by hiding their real emotions also gets portrayed throughout the text.

Analysis, Stanza by Stanza

Stanza One

Once upon a time, son,

they used to laugh with their hearts

and laugh with their eyes:

but now they only laugh with their teeth,

while their ice-block-cold eyes

search behind my shadow.

Gabriel Okara’s poem ‘Once Upon a Time’ begins in a tale-like fashion. The title is the very first
line of this piece. From this line, it becomes clear that the speaker is the father or grandfather of
the child referred to as “son”. He is the speaker of this piece and describes the lack of
compassion in modern times. He begins his story by talking about how they used to laugh
wholeheartedly. Here, “they” represent the native Africans.

They not only laughed with their faces but also with their eyes. The eyes are the canvas of a
person’s mind. So, what appears in the mind, gets portrayed in his or her eyes. Okara refers to
this fact as creating a contrast. According to him, now people “only laugh with their teeth.”
Readers can sense the irony of this fragment.

Their eyes are like ice blocks. It is a metaphorical reference to their coldness. The warmth of
conjugal love and compassion is missing in their eyes. When they meet a person, they search
whether he is alone or someone else is behind him. Okara says they search behind his shadow to
make sure he is alone or not. Otherwise, they have to bear the pain of another guest!

Stanza Two

There was a time indeed

they used to shake hands with their hearts:

but that’s gone, son.

Now they shake hands without hearts

while their left hands search

my empty pockets.
In the second stanza, the speaker creates another contrast by portraying the custom of shaking
hands. There was a time, indeed, when “they used to shake hands with their hearts.” It means
there was a warmth of happiness in their hearts. Their hands were not cold metaphorically. They
responded warmly to the person standing in front of them.

The speaker sadly says, “but that’s gone, son.” There is a sense of grief and despair in his tone.
Nowadays, people shake hands as a customary gesture only. The basic essence of happiness is
absent in both their eyes and hands. Satirically, the speaker remarks on how people search his
empty pockets with their left hands.

This peculiar gesture points to another interesting idea. It is materialism and selfishness. Now,
people only think about what the other person has for them. If they don’t have what they need
they feel like ignoring the person even if they were in touch in the past.

Stanza Three

‘Feel at home!’ ‘Come again’:

they say, and when I come

again and feel

at home, once, twice,

there will be no thrice-

for then I find doors shut on me.

The third stanza describes another humorous incident that occurred with the speaker. He says,
when he visits his relatives they welcome him by saying “Feel at home!”. While parting, they bid
him come again. But, his frequent visits made them so annoyed that the third time, he found their
doors closed on him. It was not the case in his childhood days. Then people used to become
happier than if a person visited their house. It was a time of conjugal happiness. One’s happiness
mattered to the other and vice versa.

Stanza Four

So I have learned many things, son.

(…)

like a fixed portrait smile.

After describing such peculiarities of the modern age, the speaker tells his child that he has
learned many things. The most important thing is that he has learned to imitate others. He now
wears many faces like dresses. The following lines present a series of facial expressions.
According to the poet, nowadays a person puts different expressions on his face. The facial
expression at home does not resemble the expression in public places such as the office, street,
and bar. Such uniformity of smiles with respect to different situations somehow troubles the
poet. That’s why he compares their smile to a “fixed portrait smile.” Like a portrait has no sign
of life in it, their smile does not have any sign of liveliness or compassion.

Stanza Five

And I have learned too

(…)

nice talking to you’, after being bored.

The ideas of the first stanza “smiling with teeth” and “shaking hands with heart” reappear in this
stanza. But, the context is different. Previously, the speaker criticized such attitudes. Now he has
shaped himself in society’s order. He smiles by showcasing his teeth and shakes hands just for
the sake of it.

He has also learned to hide his real emotions in the guise of saying something else. This theme of
expression vs reality is portrayed in these lines “I have also learned to say, ‘Goodbye’,/ when I
mean ‘Good-riddance’.” Readers have already felt the ironic smite. These lines contain
an antithesis.

He presents another contrasting idea in the following lines. Ironically, he has learned the art of
saying “Glad to meet you” even if he is not glad to meet the person. If he is bored with a person,
he fakes his real emotion by saying, “It’s been nice talking to you.” Such things are not
uncommon in the modern age. People are so artful in creating facial facades that they can
deceive a person easily.

Stanza Six

But believe me, son.

I want to be what I used to be

(…)

how to laugh, for my laugh in the mirror

shows only my teeth like a snake’s bare fangs!

However, the speaker is not quite relieved even if he has learned the art of faking real emotions.
He expresses his desire to go back to the past when everything was simple. In his childhood,
innocence reigned in people’s hearts. They never knew the art of deceiving someone by hiding
real emotions. Then they did not have any hidden intention to fulfill. That’s why they didn’t need
to hide something.
He wants to unlearn these “muting things”. It is a nice metaphor for describing the expressions
that kill the spirit of compassion and sympathy for one another. In contrast, he wants to learn
again the art of smiling wholeheartedly which he has forgotten in the course of time. When he
looks in the mirror, he finds only his teeth like a snake’s fangs. It is a roundabout hint to the
mindset of selfish, modern people. The “snake’s bare fangs” is a symbol of mischief and
selfishness.

Stanza Seven

So show me, son,

(…)

once upon a time when I was like you.

The last stanza is short as here the speaker tries to present an important idea. He finds the source
of innocence and simplicity in his son. If he imitates his child, he can unlearn the peculiarities
that intruded on his heart. He tells his son to show him how to smile. The child can remind him
how he smiled in his own childhood days. So, there is a sense of “going back to the past” in his
tone. His heart longs for the old days when everything was simple, true, and heartwarming.

Historical Context

Gabriel Imomotimi Okara was the first Modernist poet of Africa. In his works, he portrayed
African thoughts, religion, folklore, and imagery. ‘Once Upon a Time’ is one of Okara’s famous
poems along with ‘Piano and Drums’ and ‘You Laughed and Laughed and Laughed’. In this
poem, Okara’s poetic persona is concerned with the happenings of the ancient culture of Africa.
The crisis in indigenous culture due to the impact of Western culture is portrayed in this poem.
This poem was published in his “Collected Poems” published by the University of Nebraska in
2016.

FAQs
 Why does Gabriel Okara want to relive the past?

The poet of ‘Once Upon a Time’ Gabriel Okara wants to relive the past as then people were true
to each other and greeted wholeheartedly without having any hidden intentions.

What is the meaning of “laugh with their hearts and with their teeth”?

The phrase “laugh with their hearts” means expressing the happiness in one’s heart truly by
laughing. Whereas “laugh with their teeth” means suppressing the real emotions behind
restrained grinning.

What is irony in ‘Once Upon a Time’?

The irony of this piece is that the speaker who once despised how modern people reacted while
meeting others, starts to imitate their style for social acceptance. The turning point comes when
he realizes that by imitating he has become cold at heart and his inner child has died.

What kind of person is the speaker in ‘Once Upon a Time’?

The speaker of this piece is a gullible person who goes through a mental crisis at the beginning
of the poem ‘Once Upon a Time’. Besides, he is sympathetic to others as he was brought up
during a time when people were happy with their innocent and simple lives.

What does the phrase “ice-block-cold eyes” mean?

The phrase “ice-block-cold eyes” is a metaphor for suppressed emotions. It is also a reference to
the coldness in one’s heart.

 “Once Upon a Time” Introduction

o Gabriel Okara's "Once Upon a Time" laments the social pretensions of modern
life. The poem's speaker reflects on a time when people were earnest and friendly; when they
meant what they said and could still "laugh with their hearts." The world has become insincere,
mistrustful, and selfish—and the speaker has, too. The speaker thus turns to their son, asking him
to show them the way back to real joy and sincerity. The world and people alike can become
cynical as they get older, the poem suggests—but a child's happy, earnest way of greeting the
 world might offer a cure for despair. This poem first appeared in Okara's 1978 collection The
Fisherman's Invocation.

 Read the full text of “Once Upon a Time”

 “Once Upon a Time” Summary

 The speaker addresses their son, telling him that back in the day, people used to
laugh and mean it: their laughter reached their faces and their hearts. Nowadays, though, when
people laugh they're just showing their teeth, all the while searching the person they're talking to
with cold, judgmental eyes.

Back in the day, the speaker goes on, people greeted each other with sincere warmth. Now, they
only shake hands so that they can rifle each other's pockets with their free hands.

The speaker observes that people are always insincerely telling their guests how welcome they
are. But when the speaker makes repeat visits to people they thought were friends, they only find
the door closed in their face.

Such behavior, the speaker tells their son, has taught them to put on false faces: at home, at the
office, on the street, as a host, at a cocktail party, the speaker gets along with the crowd by
always wearing a fake smile, like the one you'd hold in a portrait.

The speaker has also learned to laugh falsely and offer false warmth; to insincerely say a polite
"goodbye" to people they never want to see again; to pretend to be glad to have met people they
can't stand; and to pretend they enjoyed talking to people who bore them.

More than anything, the speaker wants to be like their son again: to drop all this falsehood and
especially to learn how to laugh sincerely. These days, when the speaker sees their own laugh in
the mirror, they can only see themselves as a snake baring its fangs.

The speaker thus asks their son to teach them how to laugh again—the way they used to laugh
when, long ago, they were a child like he is.

 “Once Upon a Time” Themes


 Distrust, Conformity, and Insincerity in the Modern World

In the opinion of this poem's speaker, modern-day society has become false and mistrustful.
"Once upon a time," the speaker wistfully tells their son, people used to greet each other warmly,
mean what they said, and enjoy each other's company. But something has changed. "Now," the
speaker says, "they shake hands without hearts." In other words, people don't feel connected to
each other; they say polite but insincere things to each other (like saying "'Glad to meet you,' /
without being glad") and mostly seem to be interacting at all only to get ahead.

The speaker clearly despises this kind of behavior—but they're just as guilty of it as anyone else.
"I have learned many things," they declare: they've taught themselves to "wear many faces" like
masks, putting on "homeface, / officeface, streetface, hostface, / cocktailface" as necessary in
order to fit in with the world around them.

Such false and conformist behavior, this poem suggests, is profoundly dehumanizing. Through
years of putting on a social mask, the speaker comes to feel that their own sincere feelings are
"mut[ed]" and drowned out. When they catch themselves laughing in a mirror, they're horrified
to see "only my teeth like a snake's bare fangs": having pretended to laugh for long enough, they
can't laugh sincerely anymore! A society that demands polite insincerity, this poem thus
suggests, is one that eventually degrades its citizens to little more than "snake[s]" in the grass,
hiding their true selves and caring only for their own gain.

Note that, in this speaker's particular insistence that things used to be different, some readers
have seen a subtle critique of British colonialism in Nigeria. Okara, a Nigerian writer, often
pondered the effects of Western culture on his native country, and the picture here of a world that
was once friendly and is now devoured by false politeness certainly sounds like a jab at British
manners!

Where this theme appears in the poem:

 Lines 1-43

 The Innocence and Openness of Youth

To the speaker of "Once Upon a Time," the only antidote for a false society that produces false
selves is a return to natural, childlike innocence. All through this poem, the speaker addresses
their son (or a younger man whom they're calling "son" colloquially), telling him about how life
used to be way back in the day when people "used to laugh with their hearts" and "shake hands
with their hearts," greeting each other with sincere, open warmth. Times have changed now,
however, and the speaker feels as if they've learned to put on a false face in order to get by in a
world that has become "ice-block-cold" and inherently insincere.

The speaker therefore turns to their child for a lesson, asking him to teach them how to "be what
I used to be / when I was like you." Children, this line suggests, know nothing of deceit,
selfishness, and guile: they know "how to laugh" with their whole hearts, and they never pretend
to like someone when they don't. Adults, in trying to please each other and get by in an insincere
world, lose that connection with their real feelings—and with it, their ability to feel true joy.

The poem thus begins as the speaker's fairy-tale-like storytelling about a long-ago happier world,
but it ends with a wish for the son to educate his parent. "Show me, son / how to laugh," the
speaker pleads, longing for a return to a kind of innate openness that (in their view) comes
naturally to kids. Perhaps it's not that the world itself has become more false: perhaps it's just that
the world the speaker interacts with now is the guarded, self-serving world of adults!

 Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Once Upon a Time”

o Form

"Once Upon a Time" is a free verse poem, with no regular rhyme scheme, meter, or stanza
form. Okara divides the poem's 43 lines into seven irregular stanzas that evolve alongside the
speaker's thoughts and mood:

 The first four stanzas, for instance, are all neat sestets—stanzas of six
lines. In these passages, the speaker talks about how they've learned to live in a false,
mistrustful world: by becoming false and mistrustful. The regular pace of these stanzas
suggests just how ordinary a life of insincerity has come to feel for this speaker.
 In the fifth and sixth stanzas, the speaker seems to gain momentum and
energy: their frustration with the life they're leading makes the stanzas swell, first to eight
 lines, then to an awkward seven. That seven-line stanza in particular feels sharp and
alarming: the only stanza in the poem with an odd number of lines, it ends with the
dreadful image of the speaker's teeth revealed in a false smile like "a snake's bare fangs."

 The final stanza uses just four lines, and makes a simple plea: the speaker
implores their son to teach them how to be sincere and loving again.

Overall, this poem's form suggests a parent coming to a realization. First, they simply describe
how they live (and, wistfully, how things used to be); next, they get fed up; and finally, they
realize that they need to relearn their childlike simplicity and sincerity.

o Meter

"Once Upon a Time" is written in free verse, so it doesn't use a regular meter. Instead, the poem
creates its rhythms through changing line lengths, striking repetitions, and
startling enjambments.

The first stanza, for example, paces itself with steady line breaks:

Once upon a time, son,

they used to laugh with their hearts
and laugh with their eyes:
but now they only laugh with their teeth,
while their ice-block-cold eyes
search behind my shadow.
Each new idea here gets a line of its own. The laughing hearts and eyes of the past each take up
their own space, an effect that sharpens the contrast with the chilly, emotionless hearts and eyes
of the present day.

The measured, slow, thoughtful pace here might also give readers a sense of the speaker's tone
and personality. These unhurried lines capture a voice heavy with sorrow.

o Rhyme Scheme

A free verse poem, "Once Upon a Time" doesn't use a rhyme scheme. Instead, the speaker turns
to devices like alliteration and repetition to give the poem its music. In lines 28-32, for
instance, the speaker describes all the insincerities they've learned with emphatic repetitions:
 I have also learned to say, "Goodbye,"
when I mean "Good-riddance";
to say "Glad to meet you,"
without being glad; and to say "It's been
nice talking to you," after being bored.
The repeated words here (emphasized by echoing /g/ and /b/ sounds) make the speaker's
disgusted self-assessment feel particularly potent.

 “Once Upon a Time” Speaker

o The speaker of "Once Upon a Time" is a parent addressing their son, telling him
about a happier time, long ago, when people were sincere and welcoming. It's also possible that
the speaker is using "son" in a less literal, more colloquial sense and simply talking to a young
man. Either way, there's a clear generational gap between the speaker and the person they're
talking to.

The whole world, in this speaker's view, has become untrusting and untrustworthy these days.
People who used to "laugh with their hearts" now "only laugh with their teeth." People are
suspicious of each other and don't say what they really mean. Worst of all, the speaker has
become one of these false faces, putting on a "conforming smile[]" to get along in a world that
fears and hates earnest warmth. The speaker lists out the metaphorical masks they wear in order
to fit in and get by: "homeface, / officeface, streetface, hostface, / cocktailface." In other words,
they're a different person at home, at work, on the street, while having company over, at parties.
Their true self remains hidden and isolated behind these masks, which they slip on as easily as
"dresses."

This is a lonely, frustrating existence, which is why the speaker turns to their son for a lesson in
childlike, spontaneous joy. The speaker's son still knows how to "laugh and smile" in a real way
—the way that the speaker used to "once upon a time when I was like you." The speaker longs
for the kind of warmth, connection, and genuine emotion that, the poem implies, are only
possible in youth.

Readers get the impression that this speaker is an earnest, nostalgic sort of person who hates
falsity. Children, they feel, have much to teach adults about how to live (and how to treat other
people).
 “Once Upon a Time” Setting
o There's no clear setting in "Once Upon a Time." The speaker's wistful look back
at the good old days could come from any era and any place; lamenting that things used to be
nicer before and are nastier now is a timeless human activity. A few details the speaker drops
about their life, however—like listing "cocktailface," the face you put on for a cocktail party,
among their masks—suggest that the poem might be set around the time Okara published it in
1978 (a cocktail-party-heavy era).

With that in mind, readers might interpret the poem as Okara's personal impression of life in the
1970s, perhaps inflected by the civil war in his native Nigeria. That conflict, which raged from
1967-70, most certainly affected the way Nigerian people saw and treated each other; ethnic,
political, and regional divisions all turned Nigerians against each other in mistrust and hatred.

The poem might also subtly reflect on the legacy of British colonialism in Nigeria, which
brought British reserve (and scrupulous but insincere politenesses, like saying "'Glad to meet
you,' / without being glad") to a traditionally warm and open Nigerian culture.

 Literary and Historical Context of “Once Upon a Time”

Literary Context

Gabriel Okara (1921-2019) was a prominent Nigerian poet, novelist, and children's author. A
fervent proponent of the idea that literature must be rooted in the culture it comes from, Okara
strove to use a distinctly Nigerian voice in his work, even when writing in English. In one
particularly striking example, he wrote his acclaimed 1964 novel The Voice in Ijo (a language
spoken in southern Nigeria) and then made a literal translation into English, preserving Ijo
idioms and syntax in an attempt to capture Ijo manners of speech and thought.

Much of Okara's work takes an interest in the collision between Nigerian tradition and Western
colonial influences. "Once Upon a Time," for instance, is sometimes read as a lament for a more
open, welcoming Nigerian culture that existed before the arrival of British colonialism.

The collection in which this poem appears, The Fisherman's Invocation, was published in 1978.
It won the 1979 Commonwealth Poetry Prize, bringing Okara attention on an international scale.
He became an important figure in a rich Nigerian literary culture, part of a pantheon including
writers from Chinua Achebe (a contemporary of Okara's) to the more recent British-Nigerian
novelist Helen Oyeyemi.

Historical Context

Okara published this poem a few years after the end of the Nigerian Civil War, which ran from
1967-1970. Like many major conflicts of the later 20th century (like Partition, which split
Pakistan from India, and the horrors of Black July in Sri Lanka), this war had its roots in the
end of British colonialism.

Nigeria gained independence from Britain in 1960. While independence was a great victory for
Nigeria, Britain's abrupt withdrawal also created an unstable situation in which conflicting
Nigerian regions, ethnic groups, and powers found themselves striving for dominance. At last,
people from the Igbo ethnic group formed a secessionist state known as Biafra. The Biafrans and
the rest of Nigeria then fell into civil war. Appalling bloodshed, ethnic persecution, starvation,
and any number of other humanitarian crises were the result.

By 1978, when this poem was published, the dominant Nigerian government had defeated the
Biafrans, and Nigeria was again a united country—but a deeply scarred and mistrustful one.
Okawa's picture of former friends greeting each other with suspicion might be read as a
sorrowful portrait of a lost national unity as much as a worsening world in general.

Gabriel Okara is a Nigerian poet born in 1921. After completing his education in English, he
started life as a government official in a Broadcasting Corporation and later he became a full-
time writer. This poem may reflect his own sentiments about the change of the post-colonial
African society had been undergoing. As many other African writers Okara came originally from
simple and sincere tribal societies and caught between the jaws of germinating Western norms in
the society. He views how people have become insincere and false to survive in a more
sophisticated society. This poem is an exploration of the thoughts and feelings of a person who
has had to face this experience narrating that to his child.
Overview

Title: the title is a typical beginning of a fairy tale as it is related to a kid and further reveals that
the speaker's wishes are a fantasy.

Theme: how society changes, cultural shift, capitalism, real emotion vs fake expression

Tone: ironic, nostalgic

Mood: nostalgic

Narration: 1st Person, speaker is an old person whose speech is evidently earnest.

Structure: Free verse, broken up into 7 stanzas.

Main literary technique: irony

Deep –End Analysis

Once upon a time, son,

they used to laugh with their hearts

and laugh with their eyes;

but now they only laugh with their teeth,

while their ice-block-cold eyes

search behind my shadow.

symbol: heart/eyes (represent genuine emotions)

metaphor: ice block cold eyes (void of emotions) search behind my shadow (looking for hidden
secrets)

visual imagery: laugh with their eyes

contrast: genuine emotions vs fake emotions

irony: only laugh with their teeth (laughs for the sake of laughing without any emotions)

repetition: laugh, they (emphasizes the contrast)

internal rhyme: see the alliteration and assonance which make the poem a lyrical one.

Here “they” represent the native Africans. Poet contrasts how they had been and how they have
changed with the transformation of the society. He recaps how the people in his generation
showed their emotions genuinely. As he shows, there had been the true happiness and innocence
inside humans in the past. He views the people now laugh just to showcase a laugh that too with
dark intentions inside their hearts. When they meet a person, they search whether he is alone or
someone else is behind him or try to probe into the private background of the person. The icy
cold eyes and laughing only with teeth is a vivid portrayal of mistrust built among each-other in
the society.

There was a time indeed

they used to shake hands with their hearts;

but that’s gone, son.

Now they shake hands without hearts

while their left hands search

my empty pockets.

metaphor: shake hands with their hearts (genuine sharing of emotions)

symbol: left hand (intended intention/ while right hand shows the genuine and spontaneous
intention) empty pocket (poor financial condition)

enjambment: (can see throughout the poem) run on line shows his stream of consciousness and
continuity of the deterioration of social values.

caesura: (breaking down lines in the middle this is too visible throughout the poem) shows the
pauses of the speaker, great way to show the speakers nostalgic feelings.

This peculiar gesture points to another interesting idea. It is materialism and selfishness. Now,
people only think about what the other person has for them. If they don’t have what they need
they feel like ignoring the person even if they were in touch in the past. they'll shake your hand;
all they want to know is your financial status.

‘Feel at home’. ‘Come again’,

they say, and when I come

again and feel

at home, once, twice,

there will be no thrice-

for then I find doors shut on me.

This is another realization of the modern and Westernized society. People love to lead a life of
isolation. In the past, people welcomed strangers too to their houses. However, with the changes
of the society, people hated their personal life to be disturbed by guests. This stanza reveals the
poet’s nostalgic feelings about this disconnection of social relationships.

So I have learnt many things,

I have learned to wear many faces

like dresses – home face,

office face, street face, host face cock-

tail face, with all their conforming smiles

like a fixed portrait smile.

coin words: home face, office face… (invented words to deliver a certain idea) These
are metaphors for different social occasions.

simile: wear many faces like dresses

symbol: portrait smile (a smile which represents a social practice rather than projecting
emotions)
The poet satirizes the plastic nature of sophisticated society. He shows how the smile has been
branded according to different social occasions. He confesses that he had to change himself to be
conformed with the social norms in order to survive.

And I have learned too

to laugh with only my teeth

and shake hands without my heart.

I have also learned to say ‘Goodbye’

when I mean, ‘Good riddance!’

to say ‘Glad to see you,’

without being glad; and to say ‘it’s been

nice talking to you,’ after being bored.

antithesis: Goodbye when I mean Good riddance (a form of contrast)

satire: uses humour in an ironical way to criticize the Western social norms

The ideas of the first stanza “smiling with teeth” and “shaking hands with heart” reappear in this
stanza. But, the context is different. Previously, the speaker criticized such attitudes. Now he has
shaped himself in society’s order. He smiles by showcasing his teeth and shakes hands just for
the sake of it. He satirizes the fake emotions demonstrated by the society to maintain the
sophisticated social decorum.
But believe me, son,

I want to be what I used to be

when I was like you. I want

to unlearn all these muting things.

Most of all, I want to re-learn

how to laugh, for my laugh in the mirror

shows only my teeth like a snake’s bare fangs!

metaphor: muting things (the good values submerged by Western norms)

simile: my teeth like a snake’s bare fangs

visual imagery: teeth like snake’s bare fangs

symbol: snake (wickedness)

This stanza shows his nostalgic feeling of his past life and his dissatisfaction of pretence at
present in order to survive. He views himself as a vicious portrait in front of the mirror. He
requires to be genuine again, but remember he makes this confession to a child which shows this
is his fantasy to live in the fairyland which is obviously not possible.

So show me, son,

how to laugh; show me how

I used to laugh and smile

once upon a time when I was like you.

He wants to be a child again like his son and relearn the art of innocence and pure happiness. As
everyone knows, a child at young age is true to their emotions when they grow in the society
they have to change according to the society.

This is the reality of most of you and me in our societies, isn’t that so. Most people love to live in
the past but as poem reveals, it is a fantasy, it is very hard to relive the past but to adapt to the
present social atmosphere whether one likes it or not.