Vultures

1
Vultures

• Chinua Achebe

2
What do you know?

• What do you think about when someone mentions the
  word Vultures?
• appearance
• where they live
• how they live
• things you associate with them
• where you have read or seen them

3
So what happens?

• The poet observes a pair of vultures roosting
  near some carrion.
• They cause the poet to think about the unlikely
  places in which love may be found.
• Even in a Nazi concentration camp, there may be
  acts of affection.
• Does this mean that there is some good in every
  creature, or that those who are capable of love
  are also capable of evil?

4

• The description of the vultures and their
  behaviour draws upon our disgust at creatures
  that can live off rotting, dead flesh.
• The poem is full of words and phrases which are
  negative in tone

grossswollen corpsewaterloggedgorgedhollowed
remnant

• broken bone dead tree bashed-in dump cold

5

• The poem begins with a graphic and unpleasant
  description of a pair of vultures who nestle
  lovingly together after feasting on a corpse. The
  poet remarks on the strangeness of love, existing
  in places one would not have thought possible. He
  goes on to consider the 'love' a concentration
  camp commander shows to his family - having spent
  his day burning human corpses, he buys his own
  children sweets on the way home,
• The conclusion of the poem is ambiguous. On one
  hand, Achebe gives thanks praise bounteous
  providence that even the cruellest of beings can
  show sparks of love, yet on the other hand he
  despairs - they show love solely for their
  family, and so allow themselves to commit
  atrocities towards others.

6
Language

• The title is in some ways deceptive. Although the
  poem begins with a cold and repulsive portrait of
  the vultures, we realise that they are a symbol
  of evil and their main purpose is to introduce us
  to the theme of the poem.
• The description of the vultures is in the past
  tense but the Belsen Commandant is described in
  the present tense, perhaps to remind us that evil
  is all around us now.

7
Language

• The concentration camp Commandant cannot escape
  the evil deeds he has spent the day performing -
  the fumes of human roast cling rebelliously to
  his hairy nostrils (line 32). The word roast
  makes us think of food, so it is doubly repulsive
  that he then buys chocolate for his tender child
  (or children) on the way home.
• Which of the two conclusions in the fourth
  section of the poem is stronger? How do you feel
  Achebe wants us to leave the poem - with hope
  because love can exist in even the most evil
  creatures, or with despair because, despite that
  love, they cannot stop committing evil?

8
Sound

• There is some alliteration in the poem, but
  otherwise Achebe concentrates on visual images
  rather than sound effects to present his ideas.

Alliteration, repetition of the initial letter
(generally a consonant) or first sound of several
words, marking the stressed syllables in a line
of poetry or prose.A simple example is the
phrase through thick and thin. Alliteration is
used to emphasise meaning.