Context

Chinua Achebe is one of the most admired African novelists who write in English. His novels trace Africa's transition from traditional to modern ways. He writes with a mission, and he believes that any good work of art should have a purpose - an idea that stems from the oral tradition of storytelling in Africa. He is interested in speech and his novels present a wide range of language, from the English spoken by the Ibo to different levels of formalformal: 'Official' or 'standard' English, as opposed to spoken, colloquial or dialect English; stiffly polite. Can also mean 'to do with form'. English. He also writes poetry and essays.

He married in 1961 and has four children.

He became an honorary professor at the University of Nigeria in 1985.

Subject Matter

Picture courtesy of Brian R. Logan

Vocabulary

What is Vultures about?

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 them sweets on the way home.

The conclusion of the poem is ambiguousambiguous: Open to more than one interpretation.. On one hand, Achebe praises providence that even the cruelest of beings can show sparks of love, yet on the other, he despairs - they show love solely for their family, and so allow themselves to commit atrocities towards others.

Structure and language

Structure

The poem is written in free versefree verse: Poetry that has little or no rhyme scheme, regular pattern of rhythms, or line lengths., with lines of different lengths. The lines are short, so we read the poem slowly and can appreciate its full horrors.

It is divided into four sections. Each is marked by an indented line rather than a new stanzastanza: A group of lines of poetry that make up a unit - like a paragraph in a piece of prose; a verse., perhaps to emphasise the logical flow of ideas. There is minimal punctuation - why?

Language

Picture courtesy of Marco Masciovecchio

Think about how the language the poet uses helps to convey his ideas. Here are some points to consider:

• The title is in some ways deceptive, like Ezekiel's 'The Night of the Scorpion'. Although the poem begins with a cold and repulsive portrait of the vultures, we realise that they are a symbolsymbol: An image or thing (usually something physical, like a flag) that stands for or represents something else - usually something abstract, like a nation. A crucifix is a symbol of Christianity. of evil and their main purpose is to introduce us to the themetheme: A central, unifying idea that runs through a text or performance. of the poem.
• The description of the vultures is in the past tensepast tense: The verb form we use to make it clear that the action took place in the past (as opposed to in the present or the future)., but the Belsen Commandant is described in the present tensepresent tense: The verb form we use when an action is continuous and happening now (not in the past or in the future)., perhaps to remind us that evil is all around us now.
• 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?

Imagery and sound

Imagery

• 

  Picture courtesy of Daniel Brooks

  The opening lines of the poem are dark. The 'greyness' (line 1) is heightened by the heavy alliteration 'in drizzle of one despondent dawn' (line 2) and even the approaching 'sunbreak' (line 4) does not lift the atmosphere.

• 

  Picture courtesy of Daniel Brooks

  There are metaphors of horror and death: the 'dead tree' (line 6) branch on which the vultures are roosting is described as a 'broken bone' (line 5), while the male vulture's bashed-in head is a 'pebble on a stem' (line 9) and its body is a 'dump of gross feathers' (line 11).

• 

  Picture courtesy of Austin Huff Robison

  In the second section, the vultures' affection leads the poet on to muse about the nature of love. Love is personified as a woman finding a place to sleep. She is 'in other ways so particular' (line 23) and hard to please, yet, strangely, she chooses to sleep with the vultures, 'that charnel house' (line 26). Yet why does love sleep with 'her face turned to the wall' (line 28)?

• 

  One Nazi soldier saluting another

  We see the 'Belsen Commandant' - a mass murderer - as Daddy. Why does Achebe use a child's name for him rather than 'father'?

• 

  Picture Courtesy of Steven Indra

  In the fourth section, the poet again uses metaphors: the evil Commandant is 'an ogre' (line 43) with merely a spark of love - 'a tiny glow-worm tenderness' (line 44) in the 'icy caverns of a cruel heart' (line 46). These are fairly clichéd images, perhaps because Achebe wanted to suggest that what he is describing is nothing new: there will always be love and evil in the world.

• 

  Picture courtesy of Marco Masciovecchio

  The 'germ' (line 48) of love does not seem to grow as a normal seed would because the 'perpetuity of evil' (line 50) is bound up with it and prevents it from developing. (Think of wheat germ rather than disease-carrying germs.)

• Sound

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

Attitude, tone and ideas

Much of the meaning of a poem is conveyed by the attitude it expresses towards its subject matter. Attitude can be thought of as a combination of the poet's tone of voice, and the ideas he or she is trying to get across to the reader.

To decide on the tone, you need to think about the ideas and attitudes in the poem, and then decide how you would read it aloud.

Should the poem be read:

• In a nightmarish tone, as in a horror film?
• In a cold, dead tone, to emphasise all the horrors described?
• In a warmer tone, to celebrate the love that does exist?

Choose a short quotation to justify your choice.

Ideas

The ideas in this poem concern the relationship between evil and love. In the first part, the vultures are used as a symbolsymbol: An image or thing (usually something physical, like a flag) that stands for or represents something else - usually something abstract, like a nation. A crucifix is a symbol of Christianity. for the paradoxparadox: An apparently contradictory, or impossible proposition that is actually true. that evil and love can co-exist; in the second part, Achebe uses the Belsen Commandant as an actual example of this. Have a look at the quotations below, and our suggestions about how they fit in to this theme.

Key phrases and how they fit into the theme

Images	Key phrase	Commentary
Picture courtesy of Caitlin Clark	Strange...	Strange is isolated in a single-word line. This makes us dwell on the word and prepares us for the image of love settled in an evil place. By the end of the poem, Achebe shows that even the most evil people experience kindred love, but that love is not powerful enough to halt the evil.
Picture courtesy of Frans Devriese	...they picked/the eyes of a swollen/corpse...	Achebe picks the most gruesome images he can find when describing the vultures to emphasise their evil. This prepares us for the human evil he goes on to explore.
Picture courtesy of Marco Masciovecchio	for in the very germ... is lodged the perpetuity of evil.	It is poignant that Achebe concludes the poem with the idea of the predominance of evil. Evil is lodged within love - and evil is the haunting final word of the poem.

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