Island Man

Island Man is set in London, across the North Circular while Nothing’s Changed is set in District Six. Island Man recounts a man originating from the Caribbean awaking from a dream and Nothing’s Changed recounts a man revisiting his childhood to reveal nothing has changed. The speaker in Island Man appears to have an understanding attitude whereas the speaker in Nothing’s Changed appears to have an angry attitude towards the issues explored.
Language features are used in Island Man is to express the man’s past origin to present day and how he feels about it.
“of his small emerald island”
The word ‘emerald’ is used as a metaphor to represent that the Caribbean island is precious and rare. This shows that the man was happy in his country and that he misses being there. This is later compared to a “grey” and “dull” North Circular to show the contrast between the man’s country of origin and where he is currently living now.
The poet also uses positive terms to engage the reader senses to portray the island the man loved so much. The man can hear “the sound of the blue surf” which suggests colourful and vibrates colours. This means that the man feel happy when he is at the Caribbean island.
A sense of understanding by the man is visible as the poet says the man ‘always’ comes back from his dream. However, he says that he come back “groggily groggily”. This emphasizes that the man hate the idea of having to come back and this is further emphasized as ‘groggily’ is repeated.
Similarly, in Nothing's Changed Tatamkhulu Afrika uses language to show feelings towards a place, however, it is to vent his anger to the fact that nothing has changed since he left years ago.
“cuffs, cans.. crunch”
The of this this alliteration of the ‘c’ is really effective to show Tatamkhulu Afrika anger. The letter ‘c’ is very sharp and hard sound as is the attitude of the poet as he begins to see things haven’t changed; despite the Apartheid regime has